7 ms·

I would think the government has bigger fish to fry than to spend time subpoenaing yt-dlp.

by vore 3y ago

throwaway09223 3y ago
Google is a pretty big fish themselves. What usually happens is the large corporation lays out a case like "yt-dlp is responsible for billions in damages" and they press the DOJ to investigate and prosecute.
- account42 3y ago
  AFAIK Google hasn't even taken any civil action against y(ou)t(ube)-dl(p) at all, that was all the music industry.
dual_dingo 3y ago
Not a US cititzen, but "The government" is a wide term and any law enforcement agency would fit this, including the ones that are responsible to deal with things like copyright enforcement - that's exactly the type of fish they exist to fry ...
- vore 3y ago
  Given the discussion around how lacking PyPI supply chain security is, how juicy of a target it is for attackers, and how critical infrastructure is probably relying on PyPI, yt-dlp is the last thing on my mind.
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  FYI for non US readers ... In the US, subpoenas come from the Justice Department (either state or federal depending on the crime for which evidence is being sought). The court that issued the subpoena is on it, and the person or entity being served, has the right to see why some government agency felt it could aid in the uncovering of a crime that had already been committed. The person or entity then has the opportunity to challenge that in court prior to complying with it. This is sometimes informally called "quashing the subpoena." From my sister-in-law who is a defense attorney, the most common result of challenging a subpoena is to get what it asks for narrowed down to just what is plausibly responsive. In the article, this response: As a result we are currently developing new data retention and disclosure policies. These policies will relate to our procedures for future government data requests, how and for what duration we store personally identifiable information such as user access records, and policies that make these explicit for our users and community. Is good practice for limiting what a subpoena can request (you can't give what you don't have). At Blekko we logged access records in such a way that we could use PII for 48 hours and then it was deleted. The CTO, Greg Lindahl, is a huge privacy advocate and this sort of architecture made it possible to get information to improve our ranking and service without compromising people's privacy. In practice I don't think any agency could go from "we have a suspect" to "issue a subpoena" in 48 hrs so it was a useful way for us to stay out of the crosshairs. The most interesting event was the FBI asking for information on IP addresses that had accessed their honeypot CSAM site. That turned out to be some of the machines in the crawling cluster. Given that the site was outside the crawl "horizon" and didn't rank (very few sites linked to it) it didn't even make it into the cache for rank analysis. But in that case the turn around time was impressive. Of course that is because they were just using their own logs to generate subpoena requests.
  - sroussey 3y ago
    You can get subpoenas that ask for data longer than your window, in which case you have to have a longer one, even if the reachback is shorter. Watch out for smaller jurisdictions that might have “you should have expected” laws that says your 48hr window is too short.
    - ChuckMcM 3y ago
      As I recall (and I'm not a lawyer so don't rely on this advice) the lawyers had advised that as long as the retention period was published, even if a subpoena asked for a longer look back you could meet your obligation by returning "all the data you had" which would only be 48hrs worth. Had a jurisdiction said, "You should have expected ..." I expect our response would have been, "We have published what we retain, me meet conform to federal and state laws you knew ahead of time we wouldn't have more than 48 hrs worth." That said, jurisdiction when it comes to the Internet is always kind of "weird". Did you use the web service in your house in Columbus OH, or did you use the web service on a server in a data center in California? Also as I recall our TOS also had a requirement that any legal action be brought in California but I don't think we ever tested that in court.
      - sroussey 3y ago
        I tested the court jurisdiction a few times, but had mixed results. I tried to quash first anyhow. The NSA and SS can get quite testy about it and make you wish you were dealing with the FBI.
sp332 3y ago
While copyright infringement is usually a civil matter, there are times the DoJ gets involved. They even got a guy sentenced to jail for it in 2018. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/owner-sharebeastcom-sentenced-copyright-infringement https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/owner-sharebeastcom-sen...
sam0x17 3y ago
One would think that yes.... but this is the U.S. :/
Sparkyte 3y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of AI based impersonation stuff. AI in the government is big because people can use it impersonate people as a form of identity fraud.
lazide 3y ago
The FBI has it's own 'copyright enforcement' division who has as their sole job enforcing copyright, and has it's own dedicated funding [https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/intellectual-property-law-enforcement-efforts https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/intellectua...]
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Isn't copyright infringement a tort not a crime? Why is the FBI involved at all?
  - lazide 3y ago
    [https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1847-criminal-copyright-infringement-17-usc-506a-and-18-usc-2319 https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...] There is an applicable federal criminal law.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Depends on the level of infringement generally.
  - RoyGBivCap 3y ago
    Because the people rich enough to own big copyrights can afford politicians.
    - dmix 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act > Introduced in the House as H.R. 2265 by Bob Goodlatte (R–VA) on July 25, 1997 > Committee consideration by United States House Committee on the Judiciary and United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary > Passed the House on November 4, 1997 > Passed the Senate on November 13, 1997 > Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 16, 1997
      - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
astrea 3y ago
Amazingly hilarious comment given the history of copyright prosecution.
- vore 3y ago
  Given PyPI has been a vector for distributing malware into dependency chains, wouldn't you think that would be a more likely target for the DoJ over one of HN's favorite axes to grind?
heavyset_go 3y ago
The FBI does sting operations to arrest homeless people who sell bootleg movies and bags on the street.

I would think the government has bigger fish to fry than to spend time subpoenaing yt-dlp.

by vore 3y ago

I would think the government has bigger fish to fry than to spend time subpoenaing yt-dlp.

Google is a pretty big fish themselves. What usually happens is the large corporation lays out a case like "yt-dlp is responsible for billions in damages" and they press the DOJ to investigate and prosecute.

account42 3y ago
AFAIK Google hasn't even taken any civil action against y(ou)t(ube)-dl(p) at all, that was all the music industry.

dual_dingo 3y ago

Not a US cititzen, but "The government" is a wide term and any law enforcement agency would fit this, including the ones that are responsible to deal with things like copyright enforcement - that's exactly the type of fish they exist to fry ...

vore 3y ago
Given the discussion around how lacking PyPI supply chain security is, how juicy of a target it is for attackers, and how critical infrastructure is probably relying on PyPI, yt-dlp is the last thing on my mind.
ChuckMcM 3y ago
FYI for non US readers ... In the US, subpoenas come from the Justice Department (either state or federal depending on the crime for which evidence is being sought). The court that issued the subpoena is on it, and the person or entity being served, has the right to see why some government agency felt it could aid in the uncovering of a crime that had already been committed. The person or entity then has the opportunity to challenge that in court prior to complying with it. This is sometimes informally called "quashing the subpoena." From my sister-in-law who is a defense attorney, the most common result of challenging a subpoena is to get what it asks for narrowed down to just what is plausibly responsive. In the article, this response: As a result we are currently developing new data retention and disclosure policies. These policies will relate to our procedures for future government data requests, how and for what duration we store personally identifiable information such as user access records, and policies that make these explicit for our users and community. Is good practice for limiting what a subpoena can request (you can't give what you don't have). At Blekko we logged access records in such a way that we could use PII for 48 hours and then it was deleted. The CTO, Greg Lindahl, is a huge privacy advocate and this sort of architecture made it possible to get information to improve our ranking and service without compromising people's privacy. In practice I don't think any agency could go from "we have a suspect" to "issue a subpoena" in 48 hrs so it was a useful way for us to stay out of the crosshairs. The most interesting event was the FBI asking for information on IP addresses that had accessed their honeypot CSAM site. That turned out to be some of the machines in the crawling cluster. Given that the site was outside the crawl "horizon" and didn't rank (very few sites linked to it) it didn't even make it into the cache for rank analysis. But in that case the turn around time was impressive. Of course that is because they were just using their own logs to generate subpoena requests.
- sroussey 3y ago
  You can get subpoenas that ask for data longer than your window, in which case you have to have a longer one, even if the reachback is shorter. Watch out for smaller jurisdictions that might have “you should have expected” laws that says your 48hr window is too short.
  - ChuckMcM 3y ago
    As I recall (and I'm not a lawyer so don't rely on this advice) the lawyers had advised that as long as the retention period was published, even if a subpoena asked for a longer look back you could meet your obligation by returning "all the data you had" which would only be 48hrs worth. Had a jurisdiction said, "You should have expected ..." I expect our response would have been, "We have published what we retain, me meet conform to federal and state laws you knew ahead of time we wouldn't have more than 48 hrs worth." That said, jurisdiction when it comes to the Internet is always kind of "weird". Did you use the web service in your house in Columbus OH, or did you use the web service on a server in a data center in California? Also as I recall our TOS also had a requirement that any legal action be brought in California but I don't think we ever tested that in court.
    - sroussey 3y ago
      I tested the court jurisdiction a few times, but had mixed results. I tried to quash first anyhow. The NSA and SS can get quite testy about it and make you wish you were dealing with the FBI.

sp332 3y ago

While copyright infringement is usually a civil matter, there are times the DoJ gets involved. They even got a guy sentenced to jail for it in 2018. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/owner-sharebeastcom-sentenced-copyright-infringement https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/owner-sharebeastcom-sen...

sam0x17 3y ago

One would think that yes.... but this is the U.S. :/

Sparkyte 3y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of AI based impersonation stuff. AI in the government is big because people can use it impersonate people as a form of identity fraud.

lazide 3y ago

The FBI has it's own 'copyright enforcement' division who has as their sole job enforcing copyright, and has it's own dedicated funding [https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/intellectual-property-law-enforcement-efforts https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/intellectua...]

RobotToaster 3y ago
Isn't copyright infringement a tort not a crime? Why is the FBI involved at all?
- lazide 3y ago
  [https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1847-criminal-copyright-infringement-17-usc-506a-and-18-usc-2319 https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...] There is an applicable federal criminal law.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Depends on the level of infringement generally.
- RoyGBivCap 3y ago
  Because the people rich enough to own big copyrights can afford politicians.
  - dmix 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act > Introduced in the House as H.R. 2265 by Bob Goodlatte (R–VA) on July 25, 1997 > Committee consideration by United States House Committee on the Judiciary and United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary > Passed the House on November 4, 1997 > Passed the Senate on November 13, 1997 > Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 16, 1997
    - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

astrea 3y ago

Amazingly hilarious comment given the history of copyright prosecution.

vore 3y ago
Given PyPI has been a vector for distributing malware into dependency chains, wouldn't you think that would be a more likely target for the DoJ over one of HN's favorite axes to grind?

heavyset_go 3y ago

The FBI does sting operations to arrest homeless people who sell bootleg movies and bags on the street.