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Google Threatens to Kill Open Source YouTube Front-End Invidious

38 points by grammers 3y ago

veave 3y ago
>One developer behind Invidious explains in an open letter that Google is wrong and that they will not comply with the request to shut down Invidious. The argumentation: Google appears unaware that Invidious is not using YouTube's official APIs for providing its service. Since Invidious does not use a programming interface from YouTube, it is not bound by the conditions that Google states in their cease-and-desist letter. It's amusing when people try to use a technical argument to explain why the law doesn't apply to them.
- lrvick 3y ago
  It literally does not apply to them though. They effectively write an ad blocking proxy for Youtube. It is open source and decentralized. Google has no way to stop this and they are desperate. Anyone can contribute code to the project anonymously from any country they want. This will go about as well as the silly attempts to stop youtube-dl.
  - veave 3y ago
    Google can use the DMCA to shut down all repositories, all hosts, and put this guy in living hell.
    - sledgehammers 3y ago
      AKA abuse their monopoly. Kudos to this guy. Disobedience is a requirement for a change in a broken system.
    - lrvick 3y ago
      Plenty of servers, countries, and decentralized networks operate outside the reach of DMCA without issue. See: thepiratebay Also there is always Tor, IPFS, freenet... etc etc. It is super easy to host anything you want on the internet and collaborate around it these days anonymously. If push comes to shove the team can just fork to a -smilar- project with the critical youtube-connectivity function removed as an academic project, that users just happen to download and apply a small community patch to on the fly. All kinds of games you can play. Google will lose this battle badly. Code is speech.
- chinaman425 3y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  It's amusing when people allow a technical argument to be used for offense but not for defense. All of law is a technical argument.
midoridensha 3y ago
Interesting; I haven't heard of Invidious before (which apparently runs on a host as a website, not as an app on a device), but there are many apps which access YouTube without showing ads. And of course, ad-blockers like uBlock Origin will block YouTube ads in the browser. Will Google be going after them next?
- lrvick 3y ago
  It will be funny to watch them waste a lot of money trying.
- a2128 3y ago
  Manifest V3 comes to mind regarding going against ad blockers
- mcv 3y ago
  > I haven't heard of Invidious before Neither had I, but thanks to Google, I now have. Looks like another great example of the Streisand Effect.
jsnell 3y ago
Already discussed multiple times over the last couple of weeks. I don't think there's any significant new information in this content marketing rerun? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36368811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36368811

38 points by grammers 3y ago

>One developer behind Invidious explains in an open letter that Google is wrong and that they will not comply with the request to shut down Invidious. The argumentation: Google appears unaware that Invidious is not using YouTube's official APIs for providing its service. Since Invidious does not use a programming interface from YouTube, it is not bound by the conditions that Google states in their cease-and-desist letter. It's amusing when people try to use a technical argument to explain why the law doesn't apply to them.

lrvick 3y ago
It literally does not apply to them though. They effectively write an ad blocking proxy for Youtube. It is open source and decentralized. Google has no way to stop this and they are desperate. Anyone can contribute code to the project anonymously from any country they want. This will go about as well as the silly attempts to stop youtube-dl.
- veave 3y ago
  Google can use the DMCA to shut down all repositories, all hosts, and put this guy in living hell.
  - sledgehammers 3y ago
    AKA abuse their monopoly. Kudos to this guy. Disobedience is a requirement for a change in a broken system.
  - lrvick 3y ago
    Plenty of servers, countries, and decentralized networks operate outside the reach of DMCA without issue. See: thepiratebay Also there is always Tor, IPFS, freenet... etc etc. It is super easy to host anything you want on the internet and collaborate around it these days anonymously. If push comes to shove the team can just fork to a -smilar- project with the critical youtube-connectivity function removed as an academic project, that users just happen to download and apply a small community patch to on the fly. All kinds of games you can play. Google will lose this battle badly. Code is speech.
chinaman425 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Brian_K_White 3y ago
It's amusing when people allow a technical argument to be used for offense but not for defense. All of law is a technical argument.

midoridensha 3y ago

Interesting; I haven't heard of Invidious before (which apparently runs on a host as a website, not as an app on a device), but there are many apps which access YouTube without showing ads. And of course, ad-blockers like uBlock Origin will block YouTube ads in the browser. Will Google be going after them next?

lrvick 3y ago
It will be funny to watch them waste a lot of money trying.
a2128 3y ago
Manifest V3 comes to mind regarding going against ad blockers
mcv 3y ago
> I haven't heard of Invidious before Neither had I, but thanks to Google, I now have. Looks like another great example of the Streisand Effect.

jsnell 3y ago

Already discussed multiple times over the last couple of weeks. I don't think there's any significant new information in this content marketing rerun? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36250582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36368811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36368811