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If the videos are accessible through a public non-signed URL then the owner of that website is an idiot. Now regarding whether what you are doing is legal or n
by whoisjuan 6y ago
If the videos are accessible through a public non-signed URL then the owner of that website is an idiot.
Now regarding whether what you are doing is legal or not, I think it depends entirely of how you’re retrieving those URLs and if they can really be interpreted as being “public”. Are you “figuring out” the urls or are they simply there hidden in their front-end source?
In any case, he is the owner of the videos so he definitely has a legal ground to claim that what you’re doing goes against his copyrights, mostly because you’re facilitating some circumvention of whatever he has in place to keep them invisible to non-paid users.
I think what would be totally fair game is for you to put the source code in GitHub and let anyone run a version of your React App but INAL, so don’t take my word on it.
In any case, the owner should be more worried about to protecting his videos through a proper authentication system and not so much about the one guy who wrote a wrapper around his crappy website.
Just to be clear, I believe the owner is totally in his right to protect his creative work in any way he deems appropriate. I’m just baffled by the idea that his first instinct isn’t to fix the root cause of the issue.
- shepherdjerred 6y agoThe project doesn't involve any scraping. All of the site's data (i.e. a complete list of videos) is embedded in the HTML that they serve as a JSON blob[1]. [1] https://lol-content-dumps.s3.amazonaws.com/courses_v2/lol/course_dump_1616459928722.json https://lol-content-dumps.s3.amazonaws.com/courses_v2/lol/co...
- Dolores12 6y agoI checked given json and found no links to videos, just UIDs. So, yeah you helped me to get unauthorized access to videos i was not intended to get. Now, it all depends on your jurisdiction if its punishable or not.
- shepherdjerred 6y agoTo clarify it can be derived with the JSON blob and the public website source.
- reitzensteinm 6y ago:/ You're pretty clearly being a bad actor here. Links to videos on their site that you need to log in to view? Totally no problem and they'd be unreasonable to complain. Deriving direct links to private content to make it accessible to the general public? Doesn't matter if their content has the security of a wet cardboard box, you should not be doing this. I think they should probably be fixing deep linking to the content working for unregistered users instead of threatening you with legal action, but that doesn't make what you're doing OK.
- jackgolding 6y agoI agree, I've worked with universities who share content as private youtube videos, heck even businesses use "private links" accessible by anyone who has the link for spreadsheets etc. I don't think you have a guilt-free position, the fact your website is public puts you at risk of litigation (not a lawyer.)
- jareklupinski 6y agothat sounds more like a security hole that should be reported to their admin
- JeanMarcS 6y agoI guess the question would be: is this JSON blob available before you identify as a paying user or after ? If it’s before, the website have a serious conception problem. But if it’s after then it’s not « public ». In any case (but IANAL) it’s not because you can hack it that it’s ok to do it.
- shepherdjerred 6y agoThe JSON blob is accessible before logging in.
- zvr 6y agoPlease be precise: are the JSON blob, the location of this blob, and the "website source" (as any other item that you used in order to reach the videos) "accessible before logging in"? Can a non-registered user read all these?