25 ms·

YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

• vagrantJin 6y ago
  Superb.
• envy2 6y ago
  Excellent. Looks like they've removed the tests for RIAA member videos as the only change, which I assume helped get this restored: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7feafe45f64e6a0808663ad315e https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7...
  • offtop5 6y ago
    Fantastic compromise. Arguing that you have a right to break RIAA DRM is much harder that taking it out entirely. I use this for downloading national archive videos off youtube, I'm very happy about this news
  • crumbshot 6y ago
    And not even purged from the repo, it's still in the history if needed. Seems like the copyright holders making a big fuss over nothing really.
    • bigbubba 6y ago
      I wonder if RIAA lawyers believe themselves productive members of society, or if they recognize themselves as the parasites they are.
      • jacquesm 6y ago
        They see themselves as the last bastion of decency in a world full of violation.
        • contravariant 6y ago
          This is neither here nor there but Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft has written an opinion piece on wrong-way drivers in science who seem convinced that everyone else is going the wrong way [1] (it's in Dutch unfortunately, but then the Dutch the word 'spookrider' (lit. 'ghostrider') is a lot cooler than 'wrong-way driver' IMHO). It's a concept that's somehow always stuck with me whenever I hear about people who seem convinced everyone else is wrong. [1]: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/spookrijders.html https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/spookrijders.html
          • codetrotter 6y ago
            Yeah but sometimes it really is everyone else that is wrong. For example, when most people used to think the world was flat.
            • bigbubba 6y ago
              'Everybody' thinks RMS is wrong. He has the worst case of Cassandra's curse I've ever heard of. But I think it tends to not work like this. Incidentally, the flat earth thing is mostly a myth; literate people have know the earth is round since the ancient Greeks figured it out. Columbus was ridiculed for thinking the Earth was smaller than it really is (his critics were right) and the only reason his trip didn't end badly for him is shear dumb luck in running into another continent in his quest to reach Asia the looooong way around.
              • drilldrive 6y ago
                What is RMS?
                • detaro 6y ago
                  Richard Stallman
              • jacquesm 6y ago
      • ForHackernews 6y ago
        Everyone thinks they're saving the world. I'm sure the RIAA sleeps soundly knowing they're defending the rights of creative individuals to make a living and holding the line against the scourge of amoral nihilistic pirates.
        • andrepd 6y ago
          I'm much more cynical. They know they're bastards but they make far far too much money to care.
          • ForHackernews 6y ago
            I doubt it. Every time there's an article on here about the latest outrage from $FaceGoogzon there's no shortage of well-paid rationalisers in the comments. I'd expect the same is true of the RIAA. Especially among their legal team: there are far more unseemly clients than the RIAA out there.
          • jacobr1 6y ago
            Everyone is the hero in their own story. Few people actually gleefully play the scoundrel. The ability humans have to self-rationalize is amazing. And even when folks are doing something they know is wrong, often it gets justified in the balance: the victim deserved it, the perpetrator is Robin Hood and proceeds will benefit those who need it more, the action makes up for a historic injustice, etc ...
            • wpietri 6y ago
              People may not play the scoundrel much, but I see plenty of people playing the ronin, the soldier of fortune. E.g., the contract programmer on a 6-month gig where they know the project is fucked, but as long as the check clears, it's not their problem. The sysadmin who doesn't much care what's on the servers. Plenty of others, for sure.
        • RobRivera 6y ago
          There's plenty of people out there who simply do X for financial payout Y. As a matter of fact, the financial services sector thrives with such people
      • johannes1234321 6y ago
        In their self view they ensure that artists earn money for their living, thus allow artists to survive. And there is some truth to it. Finding the right balance is hard ... but in my view they "rights holder industry" is too strong indeed.
        • grumple 6y ago
          I'd be interested in seeing how much money from their suits gets to the artists, or even to distributors - or what effect on revenue their deterrence causes.
          • bigbubba 6y ago
            Right, these lawyers are parasites sucking blood not just from society in general, but also blood from most of the artists ostensibly represented by the RIAA. If any artists come out ahead from anything the RIAA's lawyers do, it's only the elite already-wealthy ones.
          • redwall_hp 6y ago
            It's not really a secret. The music industry has always been about concerts: radio play (or streaming, which uses the same revenue model) doesn't pay anything and artists get pennies on the dollar for record sales. The RIAA represents record labels more than artists.
          • johannes1234321 6y ago
            For German GEMA (which is working a bit different from RIAA, so can't be fully conapred) there are some numbers on Wikipedia, till 2012: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_musikalische_Auff%C3%BChrungs-_und_mechanische_Vervielf%C3%A4ltigungsrechte#Umsatz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_musika... They made 820 million € in revenue, 128M€ are their "costs", 692M€ of that 15% are their fees, remainingnis split between labels and artists and artists got 316.5M€, thus a quite low fraction ... and in German law the creator is theoretically stronger positioned than in US copyright. (Now this isn't 100% fair as analysis, as some of the payments to labels go to artits, as well and labels also do some marketing etc benefiting the artist ... and then there is this weird distribution mechanism where a successful artist gets over proportionally more ... but in the end: "small" artists only get a very tiny part of the cake)
      • simias 6y ago
        This line of questioning on Startup News is quite amusing to me, I must say. How many of us can really pretend to make society a better place?
        • madhadron 6y ago
          I work on managed databases. I actually do think that is a positive effect on the world, like many other obscure but important pieces of infrastructure.
        • katsura 6y ago
          At least some of us don't try to actively make it harder/worse. So that's a plus.
          • Cthulhu_ 6y ago
            I'm convinced the companies considered as 'evil' now didn't think they would at first either. Something something unintended consequences. I mean Reddit; bastion of free speech or platform for hate speech? (they cracked down on that over the years) Dropbox; File synchronization and sharing platform or child porn exchange? Airbnb; Great way to find an affordable place to stay and / or rent out unused room, or platform for dodgy landlords that scam people with pretty pictures? Coinbase: Platform for libertarian wet dream crypto exchange, or platform for laundering your ill-gotten gains? Just to name a few YC examples. Everything can be used for bad things and make the world a worse place, and they don't always do the right thing.
            • kortilla 6y ago
              But who goes into being an RIAA lawyer position thinking it’s going to be good at first? You have to have believed in the RIAA’s stance from the get-go because it hasn’t really changed.
              • HelloNurse 6y ago
                Or you have to be a morally and professionally substandard lawyer who cannot find a better job.
      • blueline 6y ago
        yeah unlike us hackers who are saving the world with targeted ads and food delivery
        • bigbubba 6y ago
          Technology has had an impact on nearly any industry you can think of. As such, there is no shortage of tech work outside of ad tech. Ten years ago I worked on ad tech shit for Amazon, but I quit when I realized that made me a parasite. I don't work in food delivery, but I'd say getting a pizza from point A to B is a hell of a lot more productive than being a lawyer for the RIAA.
          • wpietri 6y ago
            Yeah, same. Years ago I did work for a medical advertising company. They were lovely, smart, creative people. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to aid for-profit manipulation of people. I've stayed away from ads since, and never regretted it.
          • _jal 6y ago
            Appified pizza delivery is rent seeking. There is zero need for a multinational between hungry people and food delivery. Inserting them raises costs, lowers service quality, and lowers revenue to restaurants. Off topic, but I would like to note this thread's congruence to Snow Crash: There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery
            • bigbubba 6y ago
              I was thinking more along the line of the people who actually deliver the pizza. It's an honest job, unlike being an RIAA lawyer or ad tech programmer. But next to either of those, even delivery app developers are saints.
            • slugiscool99 6y ago
              Snowcrash was kinda crazy in how it predicted where things would go.
      • Yetanfou 6y ago
        I wonder this about a large majority of corporate lawyers who somehow seem like members of a parasitic species which has found a host which they can exploit for resources by inducing changes in their behaviour, comparable to the way the Toxoplasma parasite makes mice less scared of cats [1]. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/104/15/6442 https://www.pnas.org/content/104/15/6442
      • rch 6y ago
        I think if people are paid well enough, they can convince themselves that the harm they do is a net positive because it demonstrates that the system needs to change.
      • ardy42 6y ago
        > I wonder if RIAA lawyers believe themselves productive members of society, or if they recognize themselves as the parasites they are. At least one way they could rationalize their actions is by taking an outlandish but not uncommon view of property rights: that no one would bother to create anything without being able to profit from ownership of it, and the more they can profit the more they'll create. There's also the even more outlandish view that whatever the market does is good for society by definition, so if the market pays you to do something you can assume it's beneficial to society.
      • oconnor663 6y ago
        I mean, if we believe it benefits us to have copyright laws, then obviously it benefits us to have copyright lawyers, and the rest is just implementation details. I'd wager 99% of people believe copyright laws are a net good.
        • nybble41 6y ago
          > I'd wager 99% of people believe copyright laws are a net good. If asked, a majority might say that (though IMHO nowhere near 99%). Their actions indicate otherwise, however, and a person's beliefs are better judged by their actions than by their words.
      • 0xdeadbeefbabe 6y ago
        Things could be much worse; it's remarkable they don't sue about being called a parasites.
    • saynay 6y ago
      I have become convinced that the RIAA lawyers emerge from their crypts every few years, generating a slew of copystrikes to justify their retainer fee.
      • shmerl 6y ago
        That's exactly what they do. Troll everyone they can reach.
      • greggturkington 6y ago
        This software makes it easy for people to download copyrighted movies and the RIAA attorneys (at least some) are acting in good faith to prevent people from breaking copyright law and causing their client damages. Can someone argue against me please? (genuinely contribute to discussion by arguing against my own biases, call me a moron instead of downvoting)
        • pil4rin 6y ago
          By this right, Zoom/ Google Meet / Teams have screen recording that would allow for this as well. How deep should we go down this hypothetical rabbithole?
        • chmod775 6y ago
          Even if we take that as a given, my response would be: "Yes, so what?" The software also a long list of legitimate uses, as was demonstrated by the various prominent users that spoke up. I can use the camera on my phone to record a copyrighted movie, and thus circumventing the DRM, or just use a device like this: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-USB3HDCAP-Video-Capture-Device/dp/B00PC5HUA6/ https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-USB3HDCAP-Video-Capture-... (analog VGA is probably preferred here, for lack of HDCP support). And that is only necessary if we're talking about some modern DRM that makes your OS work against you, so you can't directly capture with OBS or something. We're gonna ban all of those now?
        • evilduck 6y ago
          Creating or providing a tool and using a tool are not the same action. Likewise, since there are legal fair use scenarios of copyrighted materials (short clips, criticism, satire, academic, etc) so even using the tool isn't inherently against the law and the person creating or providing the tools can't know and legally doesn't need to know the end user's intentions. Copyright lawyers working for the highest profile abuser of copyrights absolutely know the very basics of copyright law and are therefore acting in bad faith.
    • joseluisq 6y ago
      > Seems like the copyright holders making a big fuss over nothing really. This should be the conclusion. Since they have won nothing with such whole noise. Only increase more the OSS wave.
    • userbinator 6y ago
      They don't understand technology, and in this case I don't think they should be told...
    • toyg 6y ago
      It's a shot across the bow, to achieve a chilling effect. They've achieved a few weeks of downtime, for now, and sent a message to the project that they're being watched. It might well not be the end of hostilities.
      • bigbubba 6y ago
        I think you may be right about the fight not being over, I don't think they actually achieved any downtime. Youtube-dl didn't stop working for me while the takedown was in effect, and was even updated during that period.
      • goerz 6y ago
        Seems to me they got much more of a Streisand effect than a chilling effect! ;-)
        • toyg 6y ago
          In terms of usage, yes. In terms of development, we'll have to see. I am an optimist, but I have to recognise that good devs tend to skew away from opensource projects that are in lawyers' crosshairs, because they bring more trouble than fame.
    • dastx 6y ago
      My experience has been that Github doesn't ever purge commits from the history. Even when you rewrite the history, all the dangling commits are still there and can be access. I've yet to find a way to force Github to do a gc so such commits are removed. Without Github running a GC on the repo, the commits will not be removed.
      • leafmeal 6y ago
        You can contact their support to do it for you, for example in the case of pushed secrets.
        • dastx 6y ago
          That shouldn't be necessary. Something as fundamental should be made available as some sort of API.
        • pabs3 6y ago
          Pushed secrets in public repos are automatically archived by third parties so removing commits containing them would not be enough to prevent their use, just rotating the secrets is the way to go here. https://twitter.com/andrzejdyjak/status/1324360905237372929 https://twitter.com/andrzejdyjak/status/1324360905237372929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25013756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25013756
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • izietto 6y ago
      I guess that if they want to run those tests they can cherry-pick that commit, run the tests and then drop it
    • mr_mitm 6y ago
      The way I read it, the test cases weren't really the problem. The RIAA was alleging that the purpose of youtube-dl is to circumvent DRM and they try to back this statement up by pointing out that copyrighted works are being downloaded in the test cases. Here is a bit of a discussion about it by seemingly knowledgeable people: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/57421/is-youtube-dl-takedown-due-to-their-tests-which-use-copyrighted-content https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/57421/is-youtube-dl-... > > the source code expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies: > > Icona Pop – I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) [Official Video], owned by Warner Music Group Justin Timberlake – Tunnel Vision (Explicit), owned by Sony Music Group Taylor Swift – Shake it Off, owned/exclusively licensed by Universal Music Group > Complainants are "confused" about actual infringement (which is prohibited by copyright law), and creating a method for infringing copyright. Under DMCA and US copyright law, copying is infringing, programming is not infringing. The complaint does not clearly allege unauthorized copying of another person's intellectual property, and their complaint is based on the theory that certain programming actions constitute copyright infringement. I don't actually think they are confused, I think they are testing the boundaries.
      • qw3rty01 6y ago
        Hmm they seem to be taking it from the approach that RIAA was sending a takedown on the grounds that youtube-dl was infringing on the copyright of their members, but that doesn't seem to be what the actual takedown claims. Instead it's requesting takedown on the grounds that youtube-dl is breaking protection measures in violation of 1201, and the answer given doesn't really address that except to say that breaking protection measures isn't infringement (which wasn't what they claimed in the first place). EFF represented youtube-dl to get the repository reinstated, and their lawyers instead tried to prove that YouTube doesn't have DRM, and that the test cases provided were neither suggesting other people to infringe, nor infringing themselves (falling under fair use). The full response is here: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...
  • echelon 6y ago
    It would have been fantastic if every test using RIAA copyrighted music had been replaced with public domain sources. Or, better yet, videos the maintainers created and uploaded themselves.
    • gpvos 6y ago
      That won't work, because Youtube applies the particular sort of protection that those tests exercise only to copyrighted music.
      • owaislone 6y ago
        Interesting. Do you know how hard it would be for someone to upload a bunch of original videos with same copyright as the videos in question?
        • teach 6y ago
          As far as I know, that's impossible. The particular DRM applied to those test videos is ONLY available to large partners like Vevo. Which is why they were in the test suite.
      • Thiez 6y ago
        Just about all music you can find online is copyrighted. I think you mean that it applies the protection only to music where the copyright is held by a large organization.
        • gpvos 6y ago
          Yes, yes, it was short for "registered with Youtube's copyright filter".
  • shawnz 6y ago
    Shouldn't these tests be considered fair use since they are arguably necessary to validate interoperability?
    • R0b0t1 6y ago
      Yes, and I unfortunately still see no argument related to the DMCA's provision that breaking copy protection is legal if you have a license to use the work. In this case, a license to use it via a specific browser is not mentioned, so you can rightly download it with anything. This was the suspected cause for py-kms's reinstatement but as it related to Windows licensing.
  • umvi 6y ago
    Is there a way to get equivalent tests on non RIAA videos?
  • Rochus 6y ago
    > Looks like they've removed the tests for RIAA member videos as the only change And even that was more likely to allow certain somewhat too loud organizations to save face, not out of legal necessity.
• Sebb767 6y ago
  Here is the commit: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7feafe45f64e6a0808663ad315e https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7... It seems that only removing the test was enough.
• nivenkos 6y ago
  Good news. What if someone were to write a separate script that generated the necessary tests for youtube-dl? Then prior to releases they could privately generate the code and run the tests, but still ship it not referencing any copyrighted material.
• dutchmartin 6y ago
  So it seems that the dealbreaker was that one of tests that downloaded copyrighted material (see the last commit [1]). Seems like a reasonable thing to not do, and just replace those tests with just random cat videos. [1] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7feafe45f64e6a0808663ad315e https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7...
  • gbl08ma 6y ago
    It doesn't work like that since certain videos use obfuscation methods that random cat videos don't.
    • chongli 6y ago
      I was under the impression that those obfuscation methods were exclusive to certain YouTube partners, including the RIAA members. If youtube-dl stopped supporting that method, it would still be a useful tool for the bulk of its use cases and the RIAA would no longer have any leg to stand on since it'd no longer be able to download their members' videos.
      • tantalor 6y ago
        There's no need to keep that code in the main yt-dl codebase if it is for special cases. You could imagine a siloed yt-dl plugin called crack-riaa with separate tests, hosting, etc. If yt-dl detects the obfuscation, it could fail with an error message point to the plugin's documentation.
        • remram 6y ago
          That would only move the problem. That plugin would still need a Git repository, an issue tracker, tests, and an update mechanism. Or are you trying to say you don't care if this specific part of yt-dl gets deleted from the internet by RIAA?
          • tantalor 6y ago
• themihai 6y ago
  Nice...I bet the evil RIAA didn't think only about the two tests when they reported the project....
  • sp332 6y ago
    Actually that's all they complained about.
    • chrisfinazzo 6y ago
      Hold up... Copyright lawyers are idiots, next question.
    • hvis 6y ago
      IIRC the complaint was about the "circumvention" algorithm in the code.
    • josephcsible 6y ago
      I think the point was that their real goal was to kill youtube-dl entirely, and the tests just happened to give them something to complain about to do so.
    • jasonjayr 6y ago
      Random cynical thought -- they noticed because the automated testing was bumping up the # of views on those streams, so their members were being forced to pay royalties on views that were not real ...
      • bigbubba 6y ago
        Does use of youtube-dl to download videos from youtube really bump the view count? I have assumed that it doesn't, since it probably isn't passing whatever systems youtube has for addressing 'view count fraud'.
        • jasonjayr 6y ago
          I haven't tested, so I couldn't tell you. I imagine as YT's anti-download measures get more intense, the more yt-dl has to behave like a real browser, including ticking up the view count.
• boogies 6y ago
  Great, now they can import the issues to a GitLab/Gitea instance hosted by the same Germans who refused to ever take down youtube-dl.org, and a few other places for redundancy, and not have to go through all this excess stress again.
  • jrochkind1 6y ago
    I have trouble believing gitlab would just ignore a DMCA takedown request? This is what people believe? This is something gitlab has said? Actually, I guess I'm not sure of the consequences to a company of ignoring DMCA takedown requests (whether or not they are US companies; but Gitlab is now btw), but I assume they are not good, or why do companies bother complying? Rather than assume, I should look into it. But yes, redundancy for sure.
    • boogies 6y ago
      gitlab.com? No. https://youtube-dl.org/ https://youtube-dl.org/ ’s host? That’s almost exactly what they did. (Edit: here’s my comment on a story that details their response somewhat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24909982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24909982).
      • detaro 6y ago
        The webhost had a different situation: neither code nor binaries were hosted with them. Although DMCA specifically doesn't apply to a German hoster of course, and uberspace is run by the kinds of people that'd probably try and take this to court instead of just rolling over.
        • bigbubba 6y ago
          I don't follow, a few days ago I downloaded the tarball of the code and 'binary' (it's a Python script) from their website. Both seemed to be hosted there. https://youtube-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl-2020.11.12.tar.gz https://youtube-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl-2020.11.1...
• IgorPartola 6y ago
  Well this was a wild ride from start to finish. Anyone got a count on how many times someone suggested distributing YouTube-dl via a blockchain in all these discussions? Also, how come Google hasn’t asked for it to be taken down given that it has YouTube in the name?
  • bigbubba 6y ago
    Please don't try to give Google any ideas.
  • DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    well, git is a block chain, so I guess this is already the case :D
• CodesInChaos 6y ago
  Was a counter-notice filed, or did github restore it without one, once the tests were removed? Because my understanding was that certain decryption/anti-drm functions were also in the scope of the takedown request, not just the tests.
  • DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    I think github's CEO was keen to restore it [0], probably on a matter of principle but also probably on how much negative advertisement it brings them, in terms of 'trusting' github as host. I am sure they had MS's legal team advise them on what they can get away with. [0] https://twitter.com/t3rr4dice/status/1320660235363749888 https://twitter.com/t3rr4dice/status/1320660235363749888
    • _the_inflator 6y ago
      I agree with you. They double-checked the issue with their legal team. I use the dl'er to download talks. I am featured in a couple of talks and want to secure these offline.
  • DanBC 6y ago
    Anti-DRM can't be part of a DMCA takedown request. The remedy available to RIAA is to go to court and get an order.
  • mackal 6y ago
    https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1... EFF did file a counter-notice
• solidninja 6y ago
  How long before we start the discussion about exporting issues/comments and preparing for another event like this? :)
  • DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    Negative time I'd say; as in, it has already been mentioned what feels like a million times. Maybe just open an issue on the github repo?
• Torkel 6y ago
  The amount of publicity this generated for youtube-dl is astounding... I would love for this to be a ”the plan to get rid of youtube-dl backfired badly for RIAA” ending. But I guess RIAA is reviled enough already so nothing they do really matters. So I suppose the hope is that some political will to change the laws around this arises from it.
  • xbar 6y ago
    True. It seems we need to wait for a generation of media-consuming legislators to age into the Senate to get past The Eagles complaining that their music is being "pirated" on Tik Tok.
    • toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Wait? No, no need to wait. Run for office, push out the dinosaurs. "The chief penalty [of good people who refuse to lead] is to be governed by someone worse." -- Plato
    • okareaman 6y ago
      As someone who is old enough to have heard The Eagles when they first came out, this is hilarious. No offense to Eagles fans, but they were mostly forgettable Top 40 from the get go.
  • mschuster91 6y ago
    > So I suppose the hope is that some political will to change the laws around this arises from it. We had mass demonstrations across Europe with the Article 13 fiasco and nothing happened. Revolutions aside, copyright will never be reformed anywhere in a consumer friendly manner - politicians are way too deep in the pockets of the industry.
    • DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
      All the parties that were pro reform in the "article 13 fiasco" will still get votes. Unless people grow a brain and start remembering things, they will just get away with anything unless it happens right before an election. Alas, we evolved from monkeys, not from elephants.
• petey283 6y ago
  Great news!
• Aissen 6y ago
  Wondering what will happen to forks ? Mine is still blocked, and I can't push to it to rebase/merge, removing the tests.
  • Aissen 6y ago
    Update: I have received the procedure for reinstating from GitHub Support: https://twitter.com/Aissn/status/1328610884109938690 https://twitter.com/Aissn/status/1328610884109938690
• OneTwoPetitFour 6y ago
  I guess the maintainers will have to send "forbidden" patches among each other outside of Github, in order to run regression tests against the "extra DRM" videos.
• siddharthgoel88 6y ago
  But now I guess Github should be used as a read-only redundancy rather than for development.
  • josephcsible 6y ago
    Why? GitHub didn't do anything wrong. They took this down because they were required to by law. It would have been the same story with anyone else.
    • siddharthgoel88 6y ago
      What I meant is that they would rather do a self-hosting (Gitea, etc.) instead of using another platform to have ore control. Moreover, my statement was more of a speculation rather than an advice :-D
      • josephcsible 6y ago
        If you self-hosted, they could have just gone for your ISP or colocation provider.
    • R0b0t1 6y ago
      Breaking copy protection is only illegal if you do not have a license to the work. Removing the protection breaking code isn't necessary, and everyone needs to stop pretending that it is. This same clause of the DMCA is the suspected reason for py-kms's reinstatement after a takedown: it's perfectly legal to break the Windows license scheme if you already own a license to Windows.
      • josephcsible 6y ago
        This is not my understanding of the DMCA. Can you back this up?
    • superkuh 6y ago
      Github is part of the RIAA via Microsoft. That is something wrong.
• CivBase 6y ago
  GitHub is still hosting the full youtube-dl version history, including versions which include those supposedly infringing tests. Does copyright law end with HEAD on master? Those tests are still there. This makes it especially obvious that the RIAA's problem with youtube-dl was never really the tests.
  • DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    > Does copyright law end with HEAD on master? I think the RIAAs technical know-how ends with the github web interface, so in a way, yes, copyright effectively ends with HEAD.
    • jbaber 6y ago
      Then when someone realizes to use the web interface to check out that old commit, the whole thing opens up again. Hopefully github's lawyers who OK'd this know a bit about git.
  • rectang 6y ago
    > Does copyright law end with HEAD on master? With regards to copyright law and "distribution", there's no distinction. The tests are still being "distributed", just from a different URL. If youtube-dl was in violation before, they still are now. This is a confusing result. I would not expect any copyright litigant to sacrifice legal advantage for the sake of an adversary's convenience in maintaining complete version control history. Could there possibly have been a miscommunication over what "remove the tests" meant? Or an offer of compromise outside of legal necessity? Or a bad-faith fulfillment of a promise to "remove the tests"?
    • cosmojg 6y ago
      Does the fact that the RIAA is packed with stodgy, old corporate lawyers who most likely lack even superficial understanding of the term "version control" lack appropriate explanatory power?
      • 6y ago
• disposekinetics 6y ago
  Does anyone know if youtube-dl accepts financial support? The prospect of losing the program made me realize how much I rely on this project.
• rphillips 6y ago
  It will be nice when the RIAA lawyers start submitting PRs to fix an issue.
  • DarkWiiPlayer 6y ago
    That would have been a great way to go about it. "This part infringes our copyright, here's a patch to fix that". But we all know they don't want to fix anything, they want only to destroy and prop up the corpse as a big bad wolf so the actual content creators get scared and keep paying them.
• dbeley 6y ago
  Excellent news, now the community has a central place to contribute. All in all I think it even had a positive impact for youtube-dl, the community will learn from it, and the number of people knowing about youtube-dl has grown by quite a lot.
• MrGilbert 6y ago
  From the irc screenshot that was linked further down this thread [1], it reads that the "cipher circumvention code" needed to be removed? I can only see some rework being done in the past related to the extractors. [2] So they gave up on this one, or is there more to come? [1]: https://twitter.com/t3rr4dice/status/1320660235363749888 https://twitter.com/t3rr4dice/status/1320660235363749888 [2]: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/2de2ca6659a18b6f5ab76565e00491153ae47276 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/2de2ca6659a18b...
  • ihuman 6y ago
    They don't need to remove the cipher circumvention code, because there is no cipher circumvention code https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/ https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
• swyx 6y ago
  3.3k issues, 756 open PRs. do they need help?
  • werid 6y ago
    this is why it was forked a bit before the takedown, youtube-dlc contains fixes not in main youtube-dl. the guy who forked it tried to help but got banned from posting and helping out. https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc as of last youtube-dl version, the main youtube-dl behaves differently if you simply point it to a youtube channel, while youtube-dlc behaves as you'd expect... i keep both around for now.
• aphextron 6y ago
  Waiting now for the "Why we're moving to Gitlab" blog post.
• jjice 6y ago
  If any maintainers or contributors see this, thank you all for your incredible work! youtube-dl is one of the best tools I've every used. It's polished and always working and with such an incredible community. This is seriously a killer piece of software that is part of my default setup for every new machine I've had over the past 4-5 years. I've downloaded countless free lectures that some universities offer for offline viewing and sometimes listening if it's a discussion based class. Seriously, this is great software.
• platz 6y ago
  Did they say why?
• korethr 6y ago
  So, now that the repo is back up, how many of you have pulled a fresh clone of it?
• t0astbread 6y ago
  Great news! It's also worth pointing out that the team has been releasing new versions while the repository was down which is quite remarkable.
• sleepy_keita 6y ago
  And now more people know about youtube-dl than ever before. What exactly was the RIAA's goal?
• sitkack 6y ago
  Well done Microsoft! I can't imagine the political turmoil in the org that led up to this. It wasn't simply a quick sting that would fade, the mass protest on the site was probably the biggest wake up call. MS could easily have pissed away the 7.5+ billion they paid for all the developers that use github. Without developers, github is nothing.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • egnehots 6y ago
    Thank the EFF for their letter: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1... They explained why the DMCA has no grounds.
• Havoc 6y ago
  Congrats on the Streisand RIAA! Flawless execution.
• Thev00d00 6y ago
  I didnt think I could have much more goodwill toward the EFF, yet here we are. Donations link: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/30for30--D https://supporters.eff.org/donate/30for30--D
  • gogopuppygogo 6y ago
    If you want to put your everyday Amazon spend to good use by sponsoring EFF at no cost to you then checkout http://smile.Amazon.com http://smile.Amazon.com and start sending the EFF money today.
    • paledot 6y ago
      If you want to put your everyday Amazon spend to good use, don't spend on Amazon.
      • onelovetwo 6y ago
        Where do I spend it wise one
        • Rebelgecko 6y ago
          Support the little guy. Shop at small neighborhood retailers like Walmart
        • itslennysfault 6y ago
          Literally anywhere else. Whatever product you want type it in to google. Click a link that is not Amazon. edit.... don't use google. Use duck duck go. :-)
          • syshum 6y ago
            Literally any search service besides Google If you are concerned with unethical monopoly exploiting their market position that Google has to be at the top of that list right along with Amazon
• toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Say what you will about Github and Microsoft, this was a classy move. A million dollars is a million dollars. "Putting your money where your mouth is". "Nonetheless, developers who want to push back against unwarranted takedowns may face the risk of taking on personal liability and legal defense costs. To help them, GitHub will establish and donate $1M to a developer defense fund to help protect open source developers on GitHub from unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims. We will immediately begin working with other members of the community to set up this fund and take other measures to collectively protect developers and safeguard developer collaboration." Thanks Microsoft/Github.
  • boogies 6y ago
    I wonder how much MS funds the RIAA as a member of it.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • geofft 6y ago
      Dues are $2500/y if you have revenues of $1-5MM, $5000/y if you have revenues of $5-15MM, and "contact us" beyond that: https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/RIAA_ApplyForMembership-2.pdf https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/RIAA_ApplyFo... Since one presumes that Microsoft does not sell much music (didn't they shut down their music store a few years ago?), I can't imagine they've negotiated dues that scale linearly on Microsoft's total revenue - so, in fact, I'd expect that $1M is well beyond their RIAA dues. Now, it's possible that MS is contributing money other than dues to the RIAA, but you can bound that a bit from their Form 990: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131669037/201930469349301928/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131... For 2017, they got under $100K in "contributions and grants" and $29MM in "program service revenue," which is later determined to be dues. They received no other significant revenue. So no donor could have possibly given them more than $100K. (... also, why did the RIAA give $4K to the Kenai River Sportfishing Association?)
• quantumwoke 6y ago
  Truly surprising and welcome response from GitHub. I did not expect them to go this far for developers at all. As a FOSS developer myself, I wish more companies would treat DMCA requests like this.
• redvenom 6y ago
  Take that, RIAA!
• OzzyB 6y ago
  The forks still seem to be borked, hopefully they will get resolved. My fork[0] is still showing DMCA notice and shows that it's a fork of some repo I'm sure I never forked, I forked the original ytdl-org. [0]https://github.com/ozburo/youtube-dl https://github.com/ozburo/youtube-dl
  • qilo 6y ago
    Yeah, my fork of the original also shows the same never seen before repo as source: https://github.com/ppawel/youtube-dl https://github.com/ppawel/youtube-dl
    • disk0 6y ago
      (Unless I'm missing something) you can't even delete the dcma'd one in the repository settings to clear up the repo name again :/
  • OzzyB 6y ago
    FWIW: My fork is now back up -- I got a friendly support email from GitHub, and based on their suggestion I opened a support ticket to have them delete my current fork/url and then I simply reforked the original repo. I guess this is best outcome one could expect from dealing with such a situation xD
• ggoo 6y ago
  Good job GitHub.
  • Rochus 6y ago
    In what respect?
    • ggoo 6y ago
      If you read the blog post, it goes over several good changes: - What we’re changing - Developer defense fund - How we’re working to improve the law
      • Rochus 6y ago
        Right; but the motivation looks rather like the attempt to restore the good reputation after an obvious mistake; one might have expected Github to check the DMCA request a priori and reject it if unfounded.
        • ggoo 6y ago
          Even if so, that doesn't mean that these are not good changes.
          • Rochus 6y ago
            Sure, better now than never. Let's hope it's not just a marketing campaign and that they are really serious about it.
• amelius 6y ago
  This makes me wonder, what would happen if Google started blocking yt-dl?
  • GranPC 6y ago
    The developers would release an update to circumvent the block.
    • bigbubba 6y ago
      Would they? They've not for Netflix, nor (to my knowledge) does youtube-dl support even the videos on youtube that you have to pay to watch.
      • dspillett 6y ago
        > Would they? I expect so. > They've not for Netflix, nor (to my knowledge) does youtube-dl support even the videos on youtube that you have to pay to watch. And that is the difference. For paid content the user has entered into a contract and that probably stipulates what clients can be used to access the content. Same as with Netflix. Google could argue the same for non pay-walled youtube content but that would be very difficult to legally pull off I expect - they would essentially be effectively changing the licensing conditions of all that content. If they can't (easily) or won't (for PR reasons if nothing else) enforce it legally, then there is little point trying to enforce it technically.
• Daniel_sk 6y ago
  Good job GitHub and Microsoft!
  • arriu 6y ago
    I wonder how much involvement there was from Microsoft on this matter. Either way, good job guys!
  • layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
    Microsoft is a member of RIAA.
    • fastball 6y ago
      And also the owner of Github.
    • iso1631 6y ago
      "The RIAA reports that total retail value of recordings sold by their members was $10.4 billion at the end of 2007, a decline from $14.6 billion in 1999" Not sure where that value's gone in the last 13 years, but it didn't look like exponential growth. Microsoft's annual profits are about $14b.
• aDfbrtVt 6y ago
  Can someone with more knowledge on the matter help explain why downloading copyrighted material using youtube-dl as opposed to a browser is treated differently under the DMCA? In either case you're accessing copyrighted material by downloading from youtube's servers.
  • acqq 6y ago
    EFF responded about that whole subject, and that allowed GitHub to "reinstate" the repo back: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Can someone with more knowledge on the matter help explain why downloading copyrighted material using youtube-dl as opposed to a browser is treated differently under the DMCA? It's not. It may be treated differently under other parts of copyright law based on implied license or other theory, but the DMCA impact is on distributing, offering, etc. youtube-dl, not using it, insofar as it constitutes a circumvention tool under the DMCA.
    • aDfbrtVt 6y ago
      My understanding is that it's takedown was due to fact that youtube-dl "bypasses technical measures that control access or copying of copyrighted works". I don't see how youtube-dl could be considered a "circumvention tool" if the end user of said tool would have access to the content if they used a web browser instead.
      • dllthomas 6y ago
        I think the perspective is that they are specifically trying to control your access in restricting it to being through the browser.
    • kace91 6y ago
      out of curiosity (and total legal ignorance)" wouldn't that logic make chrome also illegal? since it's a tool that can be used for circumvention as well. If the defense is that it's not chrome's intended purpose, then one could argue that the defense also applies to youtube-dl since its intended use isn't necessarily to download _licensed_ videos.
• petey283 6y ago
  Pleasantly surprised here.
• ryanar 6y ago
  It seems like EFF fought for youtube-dl and GitHub used their letter as legal firepower to bring the repo back online. If GitHub were fighting for the developer they would have funded the attorney, right? Though from their blog post it does look like they are taking steps to fund defense in the future as well as other steps to improve the situation. Reading EFFs claim is pretty interesting, they state that saving a copy of a video is only one function of youtube-dl. I think the biggest problem is the name is called "youtube download", it is sort of difficult to downplay that saving a copy is only one function when the name implies it is the main purpose of the program.
  • TechBro8615 6y ago
    AFAIU the argument is more that youtube-dl is effectively a web browser and doesn’t do anything that a web browser doesn’t do. Further, it does not include any “secret” key for DRM circumvention like might be bundled with e.g. Chrome in the case of Widevine, where browser vendors agree to protect the secret key.
    • kmeisthax 6y ago
      Right, but the law makes no mention of secret keys, it just says you can't go around anything that controls access to a copyright work; and you can't provide tools to do so. The actual legal definition of tools covers both actual technical purpose as well as marketed purpose. Rebranding, say, OBS as "Recorder for YouTube" and talking about how you can use it to get around YouTube's downloading protections by screencapping the entire video would possibly constitute a 1201 violation. There's also another question of law, though: does 1201 apply when only the intent of the DRM has been circumvented, as opposed to it's technical scope? In other words, does pointing a camera at a monitor constitute circumvention of DRM under section 1201? Most DRM can't actually validate, say, that a human is watching instead of a camcorder. (Let's ignore pesky things like Cinavia which are more akin to post-piracy frustration techniques, and easily circumvented with any kind of Free media player.) Likewise, YouTube's rolling cipher can't really validate that it's not sitting inside of an instrumented browser that will dump whatever URLs it grabs. Our hypothetical OBS rebrand wouldn't actually be a 1201 violation unless the law specifically covers things that DRM can't technically enforce but would like to.
• cipherzero 6y ago
  This really is great to see, but it’s clear from their careful wording that the google takedown of the recent widevine l3 repository won’t be reversed: > And our reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM) Since it is clearly circumventing a “TPM.”
  • nyuszika7h 6y ago
    It's kinda pointless to reverse that takedown. You can find it elsewhere, and Google plans to revoke the key in Q1 2021 after increasing/changing the obfuscation on widevinecdm.dll.
• matsemann 6y ago
  > To help them, GitHub will establish and donate $1M to a developer defense fund to help protect open source developers on GitHub from unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims. At the end. While I hope it won't be needed, I hope it will be useful when the need arises.
• kevincox 6y ago
  I found it strange that they constantly used "developers". I guess this is the marketing department word to use instead of "users"?
  • globular-toast 6y ago
    Microsoft recognise that it's developers that have been pushing for open source/free software so they are desperate to keep them on side and locked in.
  • myself248 6y ago
    Github's users are developers, so I think both terms are fair game. Pick the one that sounds best.
    • kvark 6y ago
      Not to be confused with Github developers, who work on plugins, calling GitHub API, etc?
    • kevincox 6y ago
      GitHub also has a large number of other users like people downloading software and reporting issues, product managers, qa testers... I get that developers are the main drivers but it struck me as some unnecessary pandering.
      • em-bee 6y ago
        but only those who maintain code will be affected by takedown requests on their repos
      • the8472 6y ago
        Those other users probably don't get their content taken down as much.
    • varispeed 6y ago
      You can use git to version almost anything - e.g. your essays or todo lists. That doesn't make you a developer.
• genuinebyte 6y ago
  > Even after a repository has been taken down due to what appears to be a valid claim, we will ensure that repository owners can export their issues and PRs and other repository data that do not contain the alleged circumvention code, where legally possible. So they have the ability to export issues and PRs already, but it isn't exposed to users?
  • ericpauley 6y ago
    Exporting your issues and PRs is easy: file a DMCA claim against yourself. Jokes aside, you might also be able to make a claim under GDPR, as with Spotify.
• ChrisArchitect 6y ago
  I'm late on this discussion but as Google has made Youtube their platform for music streaming, their only platform for music streaming, this can be used to download all music from there no? (not even talking about movies) Kind of sucks for them, seems like this is a major threat to that service in eyes of their content providers (record labels)
• wg0 6y ago
  Would be stupid and naive to ignore or belittle every other contribution but open source and hacker culture has pushed the human race forward by leaps and bounds within just last two decades alone. This spirit and culture must live on forever.
• darepublic 6y ago
  Cue ewok celebration. However by episode 7 everything we'll be back in the same situation sans ewoks.
• huhtenberg 6y ago
  I take GH/Microsoft won't implement any punitive counter-measures for frivolous 1201 claims? Their new claim processing appears to be fairly resource-heavy. It'd be only fair to recover some of the costs they will end up sinking into it.
  • agency 6y ago
    Sincere question: What kind of punitive counter-measures could they implement here?
    • goodluckchuck 6y ago
      Just spitballing, but maybe Tortuous Interference. The Youtube-DL developers and users have an advantageous business relationship with GitHub/Microsoft, which was interrupted and permanently harmed by the frivolous claim. Github has done this to mitigate the harm, but people will continue to question whether Microsoft will reliably serve, etc. YouTube-DL could potentially argue Slander of Title, which is well established in terms of claiming ownership of another person's copyright. Claiming someone else's intellectual property is inherently illegal seems pretty similar. It would be hard for YouTube-DL to prove damages, but with a showing of intent there could be room for punitive damages based on what the RIAA thought they stood to gain.
  • cosmie 6y ago
    Doubtful as the law would likely need updated to allow for that. They'd basically have no way to enforce the punitive counter-measures. They could certainly hit a company with an invoice, but that company could just ignore it. As Github ignoring future 1201 violation claims from that company would open Github up to liability, regardless of the reason for ignoring the claims.
  • varispeed 6y ago
    They could throw few millions at lawyers to draw a law that makes organisations like RIAA illegal and then put forward few more millions at congressmen and lobby for its passage. That would make real difference. RIAA estate should be confiscated, sold and proceeds distributed among artists (not labels)
• floatingatoll 6y ago
  Previously in DMCA 1201 takedowns, Admiral anti-adblocking v. EasyList (2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137
• mmastrac 6y ago
  Competition in the source-control space is a great thing. I am not entirely convinced that they would have done the right thing without the threat of losing developers en-masse to competitors.
  • hobofan 6y ago
    Sadly, I don't think there is any risk for them for "losing developers en-masse to competitors". Everyone who seriously considers to leave the platform has already left when they were acquired by MS and/or continued to work with ICE, and both of those only caused a miniscule amount of people to leave.
    • onelovetwo 6y ago
      I'm just going to leave this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
    • RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      I have a rather large project that is in a stage where asking "where do we host it?" is appropriate. I was >< this close to choosing Gitlab over Github due to this - I stopped all efforts to make the decision until I saw how this plays out. Happy to push to Github now. It's a data point of one, but there you go..
      • hobofan 6y ago
        This is in no way meant to offend you: You thought about it, but you didn't, just like most people do. It's easy to say you would do something, but actually going ahead and doing it and going against the mainstream is a whole other thing entirely. If that's the data point you want to offer, than it seems like it was just supporting my point. (And who am I to judge, I've resigned to using Github as well...)
• Vespasian 6y ago
  I´ll confess that I did not expect that and am happily surpsied.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• hardmath123 6y ago
  A gem in the EFF's letter (https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...) > To borrow an analogy from literature, travelers come upon a door that has writing in a foreign language. When translated, the writing says "say 'friend' and enter." The travelers say "friend" and the door opens. As with the writing on that door, YouTube presents instructions on accessing video streams to everyone who comes asking for it.
  • hunter2_ 6y ago
    I personally agree, but there are some interesting counter-examples. For example, if someone discloses the credentials to an account but says nobody is authorized to use those credentials, I think it violates the CFAA to use those credentials. Even more-so if they only tell you their username, but the password can be inferred without direct disclosure (e.g., if the username is "thepasswordishunter2").
    • kmeisthax 6y ago
      CFAA covers unauthorized access to computer systems - the only case I know of where CFAA was used to prosecute something akin to a DMCA 1201 claim was Sony suing Geohot for putting a tweezer to the RAM on his PS3. It's a novel legal strategy (in case you don't think DMCA 1201 is broad enough), but it was never entirely litigated in court as Geohot settled the case. I still don't think it would have passed muster in court, as it was akin to arguing that someone had violated the CFAA by hacking into their own computer that they forgot the password to. (Either that, or Geohot was poking at PSN and Sony knew this - I never followed that particular case thoroughly)
      • 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
        It's been a while since I've read about it, and I'm not a lawyer, but my recollection is that geohot said he deliberately kept his PS3 offline once it was compromised, and Sony's counterargument was (in effect, via some truly mind-bending equivocation) that geohot compromised the PS3 (the abstract computer for which authorization presumably proceeds from Sony) as opposed to his PS3 (the specific computer for which authorization presumably proceeds from geohot). Since the PS3 interacts with PSN, geohot had thereby gained unauthorized access to a computer used in interstate and foreign commerce. It's one of those arguments for which I have a hard time deciding whether it's fiendishly clever, gratuitously obfuscated, or jaw-droppingly stupid.
• OzzyB 6y ago
  Excuse me, but let's calm down a little with the whole "we're developers for developers" rhetoric. You didn't restore the repo, the restored repo is a heavily modified version based on the poorly interpreted opinion that having some Taylor Swift (who sucks btw) test cases in your code are grounds enough for a legitimate DMCA claim, and that the only way the repo can be "legally" restored is by removing them. You didn't "fight" for us because now the precedent has been set (along with the chilling effect) that whenever we push code to GitHub, certain agencies who demonstrably don't have the interests of developers in mind or even understand what code is or what we do, will be able to hold us and our codez ransom. That's not freedom, that's capitulation. Also, let's not forget that implementing a methodology in code or in text ("here are the steps you need to take") are one and the same. So based on that principal all the posts on StackOverflow[0] that describe the actual steps needed to take, and accompanying code examples, should be pulled under DMCA also. [0]https://stackoverflow.com/a/28006836 https://stackoverflow.com/a/28006836
  • OzzyB 6y ago
    Sorry, I meant to say: "Great Job GitHub! You really stepped up this time, things are so much better now that you're owned by Microsoft! Remember Developers, Developers, Developers!" xD
• varispeed 6y ago
  We need some billionaire to step in and lobby against organisations like RIAA to make them illegal. First one who does it, will be forever remembered as the one who saved artists and their fans. RIAA only protects labels who obtain rights to art in questionable manner (just read so many stories about artists being cheated by the label). We need something that will be paying artists directly and there is technology to solve that. RIAA is a cancer and must go.
  • mxskelly 6y ago
    The fact that it comes down to "the RIAA continues to have power" versus "we have to trust some billionaire to stop this" is disgusting, imo.
  • whimsicalism 6y ago
    What a world we have come to when the only hope of bad laws being changed is if "some billionaire" takes a fancy in our cause.
    • varispeed 6y ago
      A world where corruption has been labelled as lobbying and everyone seem to accept that. People only vote on who can line their pockets and hope they have some semblance of morals. Unfortunately there is no other way to make change in area protected by massive wealth.
  • grishka 6y ago
    Labels must go too. Artists legitimately needed them when distribution required physically producing and distributing media to stores. With the advent of the internet, this is no longer required, so these middlemen serve no practical purpose any more. They're an unfortunate holdover.
    • noema 6y ago
      For mainstream labels, sure, but independent labels still serve an important curatorial role.
• Rochus 6y ago
  This is called "making a virtue out of necessity". I don't believe that Github actually needed the EFF's writing for this, or that they don't have the necessary technical expertise themselves. But at least they seem to have learned something from it now and want to review such requests technically before they (unjustifiably) act.
• CivBase 6y ago
  Why did the EFF have to step in here? What did the EFF letter provide that GitHub couldn't have figured out itself? If GitHub really was "standing up for developers", why couldn't Microsoft's own army of lawyers figure this out? If youtube-dl (or any OSS project) continues to use GitHub, I hope they have a backup plan ready at all times. Even if GitHub truly is on the right side, they've proven themselves to be a liability for legitimate projects.
  • tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    I suspect it has to do with the EFF being a more formidable legal opponent than Github on their own--also knowing that the EFF has their teeth in the issue, Github won't be dealing with it on their own if it goes to litigaiton.
  • wgjordan 6y ago
    > If GitHub really was "standing up for developers", why couldn't Microsoft's own army of lawyers figure this out? I think the 'What we're changing' section is the real interesting part of this post regarding this. I read this section as a half-apology for not doing enough to stand up for developers in this case (allowing the repository to be taken down to begin with), and a promise to do more in the future to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. We'll have to wait and see if their future actions match this promise.
    • LeoNatan25 6y ago
      So ... they didn't stand up for developers? Promise is not "standing up for".
      • jrochkind1 6y ago
        They reinstated the repo without going through the usual DMCA counter-notice process. Which would require youtube-dl to file a counter-notice, and then to wait some amount of time for the original complainer to respond, before reinstating the content. I think there are few if any major other hosts who would have done this -- although perhaps with the example set here, more will going forward? Honestly, I don't totally understand how you can get away with being as protective of the person receiving a takedown notice (in this case developer) as github has been, under the DMCA. It is unusual. Compare for instance to gitlab.com's DMCA workflow. (Which it is amazingly awesome that gitlab has all their policies/workflows like this public and transparent, which github does not, true!). Following this workflow, youtube-dl would still be down, until/unless "there was a valid counter-notice and no response has been received from the plaintiff within 10 days of the counter-notice being forwarded" https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/operations/trustandsafety/dmca-removal-requests.html#taking-action https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/opera... So yes, I would say that github has already acted in a way to stand up for developers, in reinstating youtube-dl already, and in changing their policies for the future further. Even in their present actions, they seem to be really pushing at DMCA safe harbor allowances.
• drummer 6y ago
  Steve Ballmer would be proud!* Developers, developers, developers!!! *) and throw chairs at the RIAA
  • dylan604 6y ago
    Was this something Ballmer is known for doing? Was he practicing to be a NCAA basketball coach?
    • drummer 6y ago
      Yeah you can search for Ballmer's chair throwing online. It was fucking hilarious.
• typon 6y ago
  ACLU and EFF are two of the last few remaining "Great" American institutions - living up to America's own image of itself.
  • dkdk8283 6y ago
    Recently the ACLU’s absolutism on free speech has begun to waver. I won’t post a link here but search for it if you want to know more.
  • rndgermandude 6y ago
    The ACLU has had a bit of a paradigm shift recently, from "defend any speech" to "defend any speech we do not think is abhorrent". That's not necessarily a bad change, or a good change, depending on where you stand. I am just wanting to point out that the ACLU isn't necessarily "remaining", more "reinventing" these days. Here is a fresh Glenn Greenwald writeup on it (which is just one opinion, of course): https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-s...
    • evilsnoopi3 6y ago
      There's a lot of "trust me" in this article that simply isn't backed up by the ACLU's own outline of it's free speech position: https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech It is one thing for an individual in the organization to have a nuanced view of the issue and another thing entirely for the organization to have backed off a maximalist view of the right. I encourage you to read the ACLU's position (which interestingly includes "We’ve called on big social media companies to resist calls for censorship.").
  • goodluckchuck 6y ago
    The ACLU openly opposes the right to keep and bear arms. https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
    • canada_dry 6y ago
• jaikant77 6y ago
  Well thanks github/Microsoft. But can we really trust you? My post from before they restored youtube-dl https://tech47.in/blog/youtube-dl-takendown-on-github https://tech47.in/blog/youtube-dl-takendown-on-github
• shmerl 6y ago
  Github and others should team up to repeal DMCA 1201 for good. This censorship and rogue lawmaking tool shouldn't have existed in the first place.
• goodluckchuck 6y ago
  What consequences with the RIAA face for the (IMO fraudulent) take down notice?
• gorbachev 6y ago
  This is quite excellent! I'm really impressed by the blog post itself as well as the actions/changes Github mentions in it.
• musicale 6y ago
  Are 1201 takedown notices even supposed to be a thing, or were they just invented by the RIAA and/or other overly enthusiastic copyright holders? I was under the impression that DMCA notices were for the removal of infringing content, not alleged anti-circumvention tools. That's what the law seems to specify. The notification and takedown process is specified for infringement of copyrighted works, not distribution of anti-circumvention tools. EFF's explainer video seemed to concur with the assessment that DMCA notices are not appropriate for 1201 violations, only for removal of infringing content. 1201 enforcement appears to be through other mechanisms, such as criminal liability and statutory damages. Presumably those would require something more than a letter or notice claiming violation.
  • quotemstr 6y ago
    Right. GitHub seems to have made up a 1201 notice-and-takedown mechanism out of thin air, with this mechanism serving as Microsoft voluntarily doing favors for other big corporations rather than the fulfillment of some kind of legal obligation. I find the GitHub announcement deeply unsatisfying for that reason: GitHub is unilaterally inventing a body of "law" that's going to meaningfully govern the lives of tons of developers in the future. This body of rules is "law" and not law because the entity doing the enforcement is GitHub and not some government, but GitHub still has enough power to cause injury if it decides it doesn't like you.
    • musicale 6y ago
      > GitHub seems to have made up a 1201 notice-and-takedown mechanism out of thin air This crystallizes my discomfort with github's approach. They should have said something like "Thank you for your letter. If we receive any 1201-related injunctions or directives from US courts or law enforcement directing us to remove this repository, we will quickly do so."
  • wgjordan 6y ago
    > I was under the impression that DMCA notices were for the removal of infringing content, not alleged anti-circumvention tools. That's what the law seems to specify. My reading is that the DMCA expanded the definition of 'copyright infringement' to include 'circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner' (§1201), and so a DMCA notice specifying 'material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity' (§512) would work for the removal of anti-circumvention tools as well. §1201: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 §512: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
• dannyw 6y ago
  Thank you GitHub, Microsoft, and Nat. These measures are great.
• hansdieter1337 6y ago
  Free advertising for Github/Microsoft. Sweet. If they would fight for developers they should verify any takedown request imho.
• fareesh 6y ago
  Happy news. Well done Github
• tpl 6y ago
  Github did not stand up for developers here at all. It is wonderful that in the future they might, but it seems to me like they missed/have been missing a chance to really stand up for devs. The DMCA is being used far too often for abusive aims for my tastes and I hope that some reform is around the corner (Maybe more real incentives to not file false claims).
  • soulofmischief 6y ago
    Nat Friedman, Github's CEO, personally joined the #youtube-dl IRC channel and initiated working towards the reinstatement of the project. If the CEO personally taking a stand and working against this DMCA request, if the fact that all DMCA requests are publicly archived, if the fact that youtube-dl is already back up, do not convince you that GitHub had the right motives here, I don't know what to tell you.
• nojvek 6y ago
  Smart PR move from GitHub. Glad it got the recognition it needed. MPAA should not be left unchecked.
• mdoms 6y ago
  Why on earth is this project still hosted on Github? There are plenty of non-US based git providers that would be happy to have them on board.
• LeoNatan25 6y ago
  "Standing up for developers" No, the EFF stood up for the developers. GitHub only looked for a legal scapegoat to reverse the decision in a legally-protected way. That's not what "standing up for" means.
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  > Every single credible 1201 takedown claim will be reviewed by technical experts, including when appropriate independent specialists retained by GitHub, to ensure that the project actually circumvents a technical protection measure as described in the claim. huh. Can you still take advantage of DMCA "safe harbor" if you are independently applying legal judgement to whether they would have a good chance of winning in court before deciding to comply with them?
• sam0x17 6y ago
  I think the RIAA is going to be shocked and flabbergasted that 1) the community, and I mean the respectable corporate parts of the software development community really rallied together to fight this and 2) that their argument for how this is infringement fizzles to nothing when you look at the wording of the DMCA as pointed out by the EFF's legal note. The real question is will we see a push from RIAA lobbyists to amend the wording, or see this go to court.
• wpdev_63 6y ago
  Probably less to do with standing up for the developer and more to do with the fact that if github starts DMCAing legit projects then open source developers are going to look at creating a decentralized hosting solution for their repos.
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  gitlab.com has their DMCA processing workflow online (as they do most of their policies and workflow documents, which is awesome and few if any other companies are as transparent). https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/operations/trustandsafety/dmca-removal-requests.html#taking-action https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/opera... My reading of it is that under that gitlab workflow youtube-dl would still be down. Unless/until "there was a valid counter-notice and no response has been received from the plaintiff within 10 days of the counter-notice being forwarded". (Unclear what happens if there is a valid counter-notice and a response from plaintiff HAS been received, the workflow stop there!). This did not happen here, github reinstated without either a formal counter-notice (that EFF letter is not formatted like one), and definitely without waiting 10 days for a response from plaintiff. Gitlab's workflow there is a totally typical DMCA workflow, it's not bad it's just normal. It's the workflow more or less spelled out in the DMCA itself, arguably what the DMCA requires for the host to get "safe harbor" status. (I don't entirely understand how Github can get away with what they have done and say they are doing going forward, honestly. It's think it's a potentially risky move for them opening them up to lawsuits from the copyright holders; of course they know they have deep pockets to defend themselves too). The DMCA is actually pretty terrible in it's real-world contemporary effects. That's general, not about github, or github's fault. You are right to think it's awful. But it's not about github. People seem to be really chomping at the bit to assume that github has somehow acted especially poorly (for those who want to protect people against DMCA takedowns) -- to me the reverse seems to be true. I think both github's actual current actions and most especially their proposed new workflow go way beyond what most of their peers (including gitlab) do to resist/slow down/stop DMCA takedowns. I'm not sure how github garnered so much bad will, that people are so eager to paint them in a bad light. They clearly have garnered a lot of bad will from developers though, at least on HN; every thread about github has people piling on to suggest extreme levels of unethical behavior from github. I do not believe it is justified here.
  • jsmith45 6y ago
    The normal safe harbor protections and takedown procedure specified by law does not apply to claims under section 1201 like this one was. This also means no safe harbor protections against being sued for redistributing section 1201 infringing works either. There is instead an "innocent violation" clause that offers extremely limited defense that could apply to sites like GitHub or gitlab, but which would become void upon being informed of serving up a work that infringes section 1201, which practically means if such a site is so informed, it will take down the work immediately, as otherwise they become liable. GitHub has voluntarily instituted its own takedown procedures for violations of that section, and therefore do not actually need to strictly follow the procedure outlined in the law. Instead they can chose their own procedures for handling these claims based upon percieved likelyhood of being sued and being found liable. Mircosoft is likely fairly confident that the RIAA will not sue them over this, since the other RIAA members (the Labels) all know that if Microsoft chose to enforce their huge pool of rarely enforced software patents against the labels and distribution mechanisms (like Spotify) the harm to their bottom lines would be many thousands of times larger than any harm to their bottom line from youtube-dl could ever be. Heck even just a more thorough than typical Mircosoft Software audit would likely be more costly to the labels than youtube-dl.
• ainiriand 6y ago
  This is the kind of thing you can do if you have Microsoft to back you up. Deep pockets to fight for what you think is right because unfortunately legal battles are really expensive.
• sara420 6y ago
  widepeepoHappy
• jedberg 6y ago
  I appreciate that Microsoft is trying to help developers out and I appreciate their $1MM fund. But why not just donate it to EFF for the work they already do in this area? When you donate to EFF you can specify which programs you want to fund. I don't entirely understand why they created a new fund.
• a_nar 6y ago
  I can't wait to see the RIAAs reaction.
• lynxaegon 6y ago
  As a developer I liked GitHub from the beginning, but after Microsoft bought it I was skeptical that it would go in the right direction.. I think it's time to start searching for another place to store my repos
• mewse-hn 6y ago
  I find it kinda sad that this article says "the DMCA was written in the late 90s and hasn't aged well", because the anti-circumvention clauses have been tremendously awful since their inception. Anyone who remembers the DeCSS crap in the early 00's knows that this nonsense is our legacy from not getting the problem solved 20 years ago.
• bredren 6y ago
  It is important to recognize when a person or organization takes corrective action. Between this and Apple’s response regarding the app signature, these are examples of companies seeing problems and taking steps to fix them. It is okay to want more or see how it could be an even better response. But the fact that a credible response was executed on should be praised.
• leafmeal 6y ago
  They plan to audit all of the take-down requests which is awesome, and it's more than required by law. I wonder if they'll regret this move. They're shielding developers, but taking the burden on themselves of managing the legal hassle of take-down requests. As other commenters have pointed out, it sounds like the real problem is that copyright holders can issue these requests without any limit (or maybe even due diligence).
• charlesdaniels 6y ago
  I think it is important to note that GitHub's parent company[1] Microsoft is a member of the RIAA[0], the group who initially filed this DMCA. The cynic in me says this was deliberately pre-planned to garnet free press. That type of behavior would certainly be in-line for the company responsible for the Halloween Documents[2][3]. Even if we give GitHub, and by extension Microsoft the benefit of the doubt here, this is a lesson we should not soon forget: Microsoft will not go to bat for you, not unless you can wield the power of the HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc outrage machine to create a PR problem for them. Don't rely on Microsoft to be the centralized underpinnings of the open source world. At worst, it paves the way for EEE[4] 2.0. At best, it creates a single centralized target for malicious actors, such as the RIAA. 0 - https://www.riaa.com/about-riaa/riaa-members/ https://www.riaa.com/about-riaa/riaa-members/ 1 - https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/10/26/microsoft-completes-github-acquisition/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/10/26/microsoft-comple... 2 - http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents 4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
  • warlord1 6y ago
    I agree. Any globo-corp is going to do funny shit for PR. They operate on an entirely different level that most people don't really understand. This is really just a war game for them... and now they understand how much they can provoke their own users.
    • ranman 6y ago
      I sincerely doubt this was planned. If you’ve ever worked for a large global corp you would find it difficult to believe anything could be coordinated. Everyone involved at every level is trying to climb that ladder.
• sabujp 6y ago
  thanks, donated $10 to EFF and company matched :)
• AntiImperialist 6y ago
  I hope nobody actually believes this had anything to do with what it is made out to be in public (i.e. DMCA violation). Google owns a LOT of videos on YouTube. The fact that people are able to easily get them out and put it somewhere else threatens them. So, they used their friends to cook up this lawsuit. Unfortunately for them, this upset a lot of GitHub users and Microsoft didn't want to help Google while taking a hit themselves... so they found a way around it. Corporations use their legal prowess to advance their bottom line all the time... and many a times, how it's framed in public is very different from what is actually going on.
  • postingpals 6y ago
    There's no evidence that youtube-dl actually hurts youtube, you could just as easily say it makes people want to watch more youtube. There's also no evidence of any of the other things you said. What I think this comes down to is the music industry is coordinating attacks all over the internet (they do this on twitch too recently), in the hopes they'll get some money out of it. Not much more to it than that.
    • AntiImperialist 6y ago
      There's no evidence that youtube-dl actually hurts youtube What do you mean there's no evidence? There's no evidence it doesn't hurt them either. you could just as easily say it makes people want to watch more youtube Not if videos are ripped and uploaded on Facebook, which has been a problem for them for past few years. There's also no evidence of any of the other things you said. There's no evidence against it either. in the hopes they'll get some money out of it From a guy who maintains an open source tool? Those guys sure have a lot of money.
• wgjordan 6y ago
  Rather interesting that GitHub decided to restore access 1 day after receiving the EFF's counter notice, instead of waiting 10 days. As a brief legal recap, in 1998 the DMCA added §512 [1] to US copyright law, which established a mechanism for shielding 'service providers' from liability for content posted by users (known as 'safe harbor'), but only as long as they follow formal procedures (known as 'DMCA takedown') to respond 'expeditiously' to remove content when they receive a notification claiming infringement, but also to restore access "not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days" after receiving a counter notification claiming the removal was a mistake. In the post, GitHub implied they removed the youtube-dl repo after receiving the RIAA's formal takedown notice in order to 'comply with laws', and the law also required them to restore access after receiving the EFF's formal counter notice. However, the counter notice was sent yesterday and they restored access 1 day later, not waiting the legal minimum of 10 days. In restoring access so quickly GitHub isn't fully complying with §512, opening themselves up to liability if the RIAA decides to pursue legal action. Perhaps a symbolic gesture to restore access a couple weeks before they would have been legally required to restore access anyway, but nonetheless interesting to see their willingness to set aside §512 safe harbor protections in the future if their reading of facts suggest a takedown claim doesn't have merit. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
  • akiselev 6y ago
    > Perhaps a symbolic gesture to restore access a couple weeks before they would have been legally required to restore access anyway, but nonetheless interesting to see their willingness to set aside §512 safe harbor protections in the future if their reading of facts suggest a takedown claim doesn't have merit. Do the DMCA legal requirements differentiate between good faith and tortuous takedowns? Meaning, is that 10-14 day range set in stone even if Github believes that the request was flagrantly over reaching or do they lose safe harbor protections right off the bat? Has this issue been litigated enough that there would be clear precedent?
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
    The youtube-dl incident was not a section 512 takedown. There was no infringing material, i.e., content, to remove. The RIAA letter made no mention of section 512, referring instead to section 1201. Neither did this letter from EFF refer to section 512. This was not a section 512 takedown. The rules in section 512 do not apply.
• warlord1 6y ago
  If you have a higher-IQ and don't mind some legwork, then use an open-source code revision solution. If you entrust a corporation that is, by nature, more sympathetic to Hollywood/Media then brace yourselves to get caught in the churn.
• molticrystal 6y ago
  There is a little bit more background information from the torrent freak article as it seems they have a comment from the youtube-dl devs: https://torrentfreak.com/github-reinstates-youtube-dl-and-puts-1m-in-takedown-defense-fund-201116/ https://torrentfreak.com/github-reinstates-youtube-dl-and-pu... >Youtube-dl Devs Are Happy >Sergey, one of the youtube-dl developers, tells us that he is happy with all the support they have received from the EFF, GitHub, as well as the public at large. >“EFF’s help was invaluable. We’d like to thank EFF and Mitch Stoltz personally for their incredible support and dedication. We’d also like to thank GitHub for standing up for youtube-dl and taking potential legal risks by allowing youtube-dl to keep the rolling cipher code,” he says. >“We’re also grateful to all the tremendous amount of support and offers received lately (we physically were not able to respond to everyone) and all youtube-dl users,” Sergey adds.
• dredmorbius 6y ago
  Colour me pleasantly surprised. I've followed this story since it broke. My own (lay) analysis of the RIAA's claims hit HN a few weeks ago: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/808cf690f8e801381778002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/808cf690f8e801381778002590d8e... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24888234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24888234) The EFF's letter makes strongly similar arguments, admittedly with better legal citations buttressing. I'd hinted in that post, and commented at HN, as to steps Microsoft could take to establish its credibility before the Free Software community: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25007097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25007097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24876199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24876199 Specifically: Microsoft is a member of the RIAA. It could and should resign. Microsoft can lobby for further exceptions to §1201 anti-circumvention. Microsoft can issue a statement formally protesting RIAA's action. Microsoft could offer an Amicus brief or other statements in favour of youtube-dl developers. As an old-school Linux user and advocate, I'm used to considering Microsoft the opposition, and my praise is grudging, but given where due. By my reckoning, Microsoft are at least 3 for 4 in meeting my suggestions. Of the fourth, I suspect its upcoming RIAA renewal discussion will be interesting. Google, on the other hand, have been conspicuously silent. Chris DiBona, are you listening?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• bahmboo 6y ago
  Well done eff and github
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• throwawayay02 6y ago
  Yet another case of big corp attacking someone, that someone having an online voice and complaining, big corp doing damage control spinning some tale about how they'll endeavor to do better in the future and how much they agree with the little guy. For once I'd like companies to be honest, just say you reversed it when it was found out it would be more cost efficient to do so.
• mytechtoday 6y ago
  The action to take down Youtube-dl seemed to be a directed time based action meant to coincide with the election. Most on-line youtube downloading sites were also deplatformed a day or two before the election. I think that Youtube didn't want users to have the ability to locally save videos that they have seen during the week of the election. It seems to be a greater attempt to suppress information sharing than anything specific to the copyright. Youtube just wanted immediate action to prevent people from using the code to get around the online download sites that were also taken down.
• Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  Is no one surprised that the EFF mentions the door at Moria? (page 2, second half) https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1...
• junon 6y ago
  Good on the EFF. This is wonderful to see.
• soraminazuki 6y ago
  From the EFF letter [1]: > We presume that this "signature" code is what RIAA refers to as a "rolling cipher," although YouTube's JavaScript code does not contain this phrase. Does this mean the RIAA just invented the term out of thin air to mislead people? [1]: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/e00bfb544e93bfd3066fe1699171964dd2dc29e0/2020/11/2020-11-16-RIAA-reversal-effletter.pdf https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/e00bfb544e93bfd3066fe169...
• bitwize 6y ago
  Cheers, GitHub. You did the right thing. That's really rare in today's world.
• vincengomes 6y ago
  youtube-dl -U
• dvduval 6y ago
  If I can watch a video on my computer for free, it's not too difficult to capture it. There is software I can download. There are browser plugins. This is just one of many options available. I do fear though that this is going to lead some more and more paywall content and less and less publicly available content.
• envolt 6y ago
  >In the case where the claim is ambiguous, we will err on the side of the developer, and leave up the repository unless there is clear evidence of illegal circumvention.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  "As a result, Section 1201 makes it illegal to use or distribute technology (including source code) that bypasses technical measures that control access or copying of copyrighted works, even if that technology can be used in a way that would not be copyright infringement." Section 1201 does not "make it illegal" to use of copy control circumvention technology. It does not prohibit use of copy control circumvention technology. It prohibits use of access control circumvention technology. Don't take my word for it. Read what is published by the Copyright Office about Section 1201. "As envisioned by Congress, section 1201 seeks to balance the interests of copyright owners and users, including the personal interests of consumers, in the digital environment. It does so by protecting the use of technological measures (also called technological protection measures or TPMs) used by copyright owners to prevent unauthorized access to or use of their works. Section 1201 contains three separate protections for TPMs. First, it prohibits circumvention of technological measures employed by or on behalf of copyright owners to protect access to their works (also known as access controls). Second, the statute prohibits trafficking in devices or services primarily designed to circumvent access controls. Finally, it prohibits trafficking in devices or services primarily designed to circumvent TPMs used to protect the copyright rights of the owner of a work (also known as copy controls). Copy controls protect against unauthorized uses of a copyrighted work once access has been lawfully obtained. Because title 17 already forbids copyright infringement, there is no corresponding ban on the act of circumventing a copy control." Source: https://www.copyright.gov/policy/1201/section-1201-full-report.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/policy/1201/section-1201-full-repo...
• hsuduebc 6y ago
  I have hard time to believe that this isn't a PR stunt to not look like a corporate cucks.