7 ms·

They haven't been "ordered" anything by anyone who has the authority to issue an order. They have been requested to take it down, but this request arguably has

by jbotz 6y ago

They haven't been "ordered" anything by anyone who has the authority to issue an order. They have been requested to take it down, but this request arguably has no force under the DMCA because the RIAA is not the copyright holder of the material requested to be take down. Even if youtube-dl could be considered "circumvention technology" the DMCA safe harbour provision does not apply to that. It may not be surprising or even "evil", but at best it is excessively cautious for a company who profess to serve the open source community and want/need the goodwill thereof. Clearly this is the corporate owner (Microsoft) behind Github showing its hand. Time to move to other platforms.

marvion 6y ago
> Clearly this is corporate owner (Microsoft) behind Github showing its hand. You should check out the history of the DCMA repo.
- dannyw 6y ago
  The history isn't super relevant because a takedown of something like youtube-dl is really unprecedented.
Rochus 6y ago
Absolutely right; RIAA was only successful with this questionable action thanks to support from Github.
bitwize 6y ago
> Even if youtube-dl could be considered "circumvention technology" the DCMA safe harbour provision does not apply to that. Yes, which means it's straight up a crime to use or distribute youtube-dl, and GitHub does not want to be criminally liable. GitLab and similar sites will follow suit -- or face federal charges.
- db48x 6y ago
  There's nothing to circumvent. It's not illegal.
  - sbarre 6y ago
    The problem with the DMCA is that the anti-circumvention clauses are vague at best, and unfortunately it's easy for well-funded corporations to make claims against it. There is nothing in the law that talks about the effectiveness of the anti-circumvention tech, so even if the tech is trivial to bypass, if that bypass is done via "unintended usage" (according to the rights holder, not you) then they can claim you are doing something illegal. It's a shitty law.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Wrong. YouTube obfuscates the URL of the video stream for videos which have been identified as containing copyrighted material and are licensed for streaming only through the YouTube Web player or app. The copyright owner has made the material available under a license which permits ONLY that. Youtube-dl contains code to decrypt the URL of the video stream in order to download and save the copyrighted material, in violation of the license. Now let's look at some definitions from the DMCA: (A) to “circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure” means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and (B) a technological measure “effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title. We have to ask ourselves two questions. First, is the URL obfuscation scheme a "technological measure" that “effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title”? Yes, it is. In the normal course of its operation, it prevents the user from accessing the work except to stream it through YouTube's Web player or its app. The bar set by the law for "effective" protection is very low. If your "DRM" is a simple XOR cipher whose key is "hello world", then it "effectively protects a right of the copyright owner under this title", provided that it does its job of restricting access to anyone who doesn't know the key. Secondly, does youtube-dl circumvent protection afforded by the technological measure? Yes, it does. The technological measure enforces certain policies by means of its decryption algorithm; youtube-dl reimplements the algorithm, but does not enforce the policies, allowing people to get around restrictions demanded by rightsholders like the RIAA and implemented by Google. Does youtube-dl have limited use other than to circumvent protections afforded by the technical measure? Yes, it does. If the URLs were not obfuscated, a simple HTTP client might suffice to download the video data. The primary use of youtube-dl is to get around the measures Google had put in place to restrict access to YouTube content (the same for other video sites). Therefore... youtube-dl is a circumvention device prohibited under the DMCA, and is therefore ILLEGAL. Distributing it is a felony under federal law, punishable by up to five years in prison. Go ahead. Ask any copyright lawyer. I'm sure they'll tell you the same.
viraptor 6y ago
It's not up to github to analyse the DMCA validity beyond "does it match the format and include required information". Youtube-dl owner can do it and request an instant revert if they're happy to take the responsibility. No service provider is going to fight a specific case of DMCA for a third-party.
- gruez 6y ago
  >No service provider is going to fight a specific case of DMCA for a third-party. How far do you think I'll get if I tried to file a bogus DMCA request for a Microsoft repo?
  - sbarre 6y ago
    Not far because _Microsoft_ - the owner of the repo - will fight you on it. It happens that they own Github, but s/Microsoft/Oracle/ and you'll probably get the same result. The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit, then the owner of the repo will kick your ass in court. It just happens that youtube-dl doesn't have a large corporate owner, and the RIAA _is_ a large corporate entity, and so this is how it happens. Your anger is misdirected here....
    - gruez 6y ago
      >The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit That seems unlikely, considering that would be a massive DDoS vector.
      - sbarre 6y ago
        Fair enough, I was making an assumption there.. but you are probably correct.
- jchw 6y ago
  As someone who once filed a DMCA request against something, I can tell you that they requested additional verification that I was the copyright holder. Whether that was wise of them or not, it was not to a small company at all.

by jbotz 6y ago

marvion 6y ago

> Clearly this is corporate owner (Microsoft) behind Github showing its hand. You should check out the history of the DCMA repo.

dannyw 6y ago
The history isn't super relevant because a takedown of something like youtube-dl is really unprecedented.

Rochus 6y ago

Absolutely right; RIAA was only successful with this questionable action thanks to support from Github.

bitwize 6y ago

> Even if youtube-dl could be considered "circumvention technology" the DCMA safe harbour provision does not apply to that. Yes, which means it's straight up a crime to use or distribute youtube-dl, and GitHub does not want to be criminally liable. GitLab and similar sites will follow suit -- or face federal charges.

db48x 6y ago
There's nothing to circumvent. It's not illegal.
- sbarre 6y ago
  The problem with the DMCA is that the anti-circumvention clauses are vague at best, and unfortunately it's easy for well-funded corporations to make claims against it. There is nothing in the law that talks about the effectiveness of the anti-circumvention tech, so even if the tech is trivial to bypass, if that bypass is done via "unintended usage" (according to the rights holder, not you) then they can claim you are doing something illegal. It's a shitty law.
- bitwize 6y ago
  Wrong. YouTube obfuscates the URL of the video stream for videos which have been identified as containing copyrighted material and are licensed for streaming only through the YouTube Web player or app. The copyright owner has made the material available under a license which permits ONLY that. Youtube-dl contains code to decrypt the URL of the video stream in order to download and save the copyrighted material, in violation of the license. Now let's look at some definitions from the DMCA: (A) to “circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure” means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and (B) a technological measure “effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title. We have to ask ourselves two questions. First, is the URL obfuscation scheme a "technological measure" that “effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title”? Yes, it is. In the normal course of its operation, it prevents the user from accessing the work except to stream it through YouTube's Web player or its app. The bar set by the law for "effective" protection is very low. If your "DRM" is a simple XOR cipher whose key is "hello world", then it "effectively protects a right of the copyright owner under this title", provided that it does its job of restricting access to anyone who doesn't know the key. Secondly, does youtube-dl circumvent protection afforded by the technological measure? Yes, it does. The technological measure enforces certain policies by means of its decryption algorithm; youtube-dl reimplements the algorithm, but does not enforce the policies, allowing people to get around restrictions demanded by rightsholders like the RIAA and implemented by Google. Does youtube-dl have limited use other than to circumvent protections afforded by the technical measure? Yes, it does. If the URLs were not obfuscated, a simple HTTP client might suffice to download the video data. The primary use of youtube-dl is to get around the measures Google had put in place to restrict access to YouTube content (the same for other video sites). Therefore... youtube-dl is a circumvention device prohibited under the DMCA, and is therefore ILLEGAL. Distributing it is a felony under federal law, punishable by up to five years in prison. Go ahead. Ask any copyright lawyer. I'm sure they'll tell you the same.

viraptor 6y ago

It's not up to github to analyse the DMCA validity beyond "does it match the format and include required information". Youtube-dl owner can do it and request an instant revert if they're happy to take the responsibility. No service provider is going to fight a specific case of DMCA for a third-party.

gruez 6y ago
>No service provider is going to fight a specific case of DMCA for a third-party. How far do you think I'll get if I tried to file a bogus DMCA request for a Microsoft repo?
- sbarre 6y ago
  Not far because _Microsoft_ - the owner of the repo - will fight you on it. It happens that they own Github, but s/Microsoft/Oracle/ and you'll probably get the same result. The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit, then the owner of the repo will kick your ass in court. It just happens that youtube-dl doesn't have a large corporate owner, and the RIAA _is_ a large corporate entity, and so this is how it happens. Your anger is misdirected here....
  - gruez 6y ago
    >The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit That seems unlikely, considering that would be a massive DDoS vector.
    - sbarre 6y ago
      Fair enough, I was making an assumption there.. but you are probably correct.
jchw 6y ago
As someone who once filed a DMCA request against something, I can tell you that they requested additional verification that I was the copyright holder. Whether that was wise of them or not, it was not to a small company at all.