3 ms·

Do you think a guy with a 12+ year old channel and 2m subscribers has never entered into a business relationship with youtube?

op00to 2y ago
How can you prove it was him and not someone else? Again, where’s the wet ink signature?
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Courts are not binary logic machines. If you go into one building your whole case around such an argument you will be laughed right out again.
lucb1e 2y ago
This logic made a lot of sense to me standalone, but further down the thread I read <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242476>: > YouTube claims he violated their API terms of service and he [Louis] explains that GrayJay doesn't use the API so they never agreed or accepted those terms. The point (of the person you replied to, too, presumably) is not that they don't have an agreement with Google, but that they're not violating these specific terms (as claimed by Google) because that's not what they signed up for. They run a channel, not an API client. (My understanding of their words, not saying I can judge the legal merit of this.) Not that it seems like a (at least short term) beneficial move to get this type of cross with the platform that can probably terminate your account at their sole discretion, but I'm happy he's trying to get Youtube content more liberated. For instance, you can mark your videos as having a creative commons license, but that means nothing because it's not like it spawns a download button for the users to exercise their granted license. Anyone besides the uploader still has to violate YT's ToS (which I'm sure forbids these third-party video downloaders) in order to get at that creative commons video data
- cyber24 2y ago
  Just to clarify: This letter was about GrayJay, a 3rd party YouTube front-end that -as I understand it- gets its YT content by parsing the YouTube website. This way they can access YouTube content without using their official (or any, really) API. Parsing the site is more complicated and a lot of work to maintain but good for privacy and no restrictions from API terms of use. Google pretends not to know or understand this by asking the GrayJay devs to honor the terms of an API they actively avoid using. GrayJay is being developed by a team at FUTO (dot org) that Louis Rossmann is affiliated with. His personal 'Louis Rossmann' YouTube channel is seperate from FUTO and GrayJay, and isn't part of this issue, nor is his personal channel mentioned in the letter. I hope I remember correctly, I listened to his video while falling asleep ^^
  - wmf 2y ago
    His personal 'Louis Rossmann' YouTube channel isn't part of this issue I'm sure he'd like to believe that but YouTube seems pretty happy to ban accounts for spurious reasons.
    - zarzavat 2y ago
      YouTube, a company trying to compete with Twitch, once banned people’s entire Google accounts for spamming emotes in chat. https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtube-emote-spam-markiplier/ https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtub...
    - Zooti 2y ago
      Even if so, isn't that the entire point of this server he is protecting?
  - AlienRobot 2y ago
    I'm on Youtube's side here. Any UI is an API with extra steps.
    - f33d5173 2y ago
      If you don't need an account or an api key to access it, then there's no contract signed, and so they can't restrict your usage contractually. An API with no requirement for an API key is functionally identical here. On the other hand, scraping a website that only exposes content to logged in users is the same as using an api behind a key. The relevant part is whether you need to sign a contract to access the content.
fallingsquirrel 2y ago
Companies are separate legal entities from the people who work there. YT can't make demands of a company just because one of the company's employees happens to have a YT channel. It's true if some random gaming youtuber has a job at IBM, and it's also true if you're a public figure like Louis Rossman. IBM can say they have no business relationship with YT, even if one of IBM's employees runs a youtube channel. And Grayjay can say they have no business relationship with YT, even if Louis Rossman has a channel. This is in addition to lucb1e's comment about the API terms specifically. Even if YT's lawyers are confusing the individual Louis Rossman with the company he's associated with, they still seem confused about which set of terms he agreed to.
- csande17 2y ago
  FUTO itself also has a YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@FUTOTECH https://youtube.com/@FUTOTECH

op00to 2y ago

How can you prove it was him and not someone else? Again, where’s the wet ink signature?

anigbrowl 2y ago
Courts are not binary logic machines. If you go into one building your whole case around such an argument you will be laughed right out again.

lucb1e 2y ago

This logic made a lot of sense to me standalone, but further down the thread I read <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242476>: > YouTube claims he violated their API terms of service and he [Louis] explains that GrayJay doesn't use the API so they never agreed or accepted those terms. The point (of the person you replied to, too, presumably) is not that they don't have an agreement with Google, but that they're not violating these specific terms (as claimed by Google) because that's not what they signed up for. They run a channel, not an API client. (My understanding of their words, not saying I can judge the legal merit of this.) Not that it seems like a (at least short term) beneficial move to get this type of cross with the platform that can probably terminate your account at their sole discretion, but I'm happy he's trying to get Youtube content more liberated. For instance, you can mark your videos as having a creative commons license, but that means nothing because it's not like it spawns a download button for the users to exercise their granted license. Anyone besides the uploader still has to violate YT's ToS (which I'm sure forbids these third-party video downloaders) in order to get at that creative commons video data

cyber24 2y ago
Just to clarify: This letter was about GrayJay, a 3rd party YouTube front-end that -as I understand it- gets its YT content by parsing the YouTube website. This way they can access YouTube content without using their official (or any, really) API. Parsing the site is more complicated and a lot of work to maintain but good for privacy and no restrictions from API terms of use. Google pretends not to know or understand this by asking the GrayJay devs to honor the terms of an API they actively avoid using. GrayJay is being developed by a team at FUTO (dot org) that Louis Rossmann is affiliated with. His personal 'Louis Rossmann' YouTube channel is seperate from FUTO and GrayJay, and isn't part of this issue, nor is his personal channel mentioned in the letter. I hope I remember correctly, I listened to his video while falling asleep ^^
- wmf 2y ago
  His personal 'Louis Rossmann' YouTube channel isn't part of this issue I'm sure he'd like to believe that but YouTube seems pretty happy to ban accounts for spurious reasons.
  - zarzavat 2y ago
    YouTube, a company trying to compete with Twitch, once banned people’s entire Google accounts for spamming emotes in chat. https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtube-emote-spam-markiplier/ https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtub...
  - Zooti 2y ago
    Even if so, isn't that the entire point of this server he is protecting?
- AlienRobot 2y ago
  I'm on Youtube's side here. Any UI is an API with extra steps.
  - f33d5173 2y ago
    If you don't need an account or an api key to access it, then there's no contract signed, and so they can't restrict your usage contractually. An API with no requirement for an API key is functionally identical here. On the other hand, scraping a website that only exposes content to logged in users is the same as using an api behind a key. The relevant part is whether you need to sign a contract to access the content.

fallingsquirrel 2y ago

Companies are separate legal entities from the people who work there. YT can't make demands of a company just because one of the company's employees happens to have a YT channel. It's true if some random gaming youtuber has a job at IBM, and it's also true if you're a public figure like Louis Rossman. IBM can say they have no business relationship with YT, even if one of IBM's employees runs a youtube channel. And Grayjay can say they have no business relationship with YT, even if Louis Rossman has a channel. This is in addition to lucb1e's comment about the API terms specifically. Even if YT's lawyers are confusing the individual Louis Rossman with the company he's associated with, they still seem confused about which set of terms he agreed to.

csande17 2y ago
FUTO itself also has a YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@FUTOTECH https://youtube.com/@FUTOTECH