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"Matesanz and his lawyers argue that, since Youtube-mp3.org does not use YouTube’s application programming interface, it does not violate YouTube’s terms of ser
by adgar 14y ago
"Matesanz and his lawyers argue that, since Youtube-mp3.org does not use YouTube’s application programming interface, it does not violate YouTube’s terms of service."
- saalweachter 14y agoI wonder if that includes robots.txt. I don't know how exactly either YouTube or Youtube-mp3.org works, but I'm guessing that he's scraping YouTube (and not using their API), and I would expect that in doing so, he's ignoring robots.txt. I'd be surprised if robots.txt had any legal force whatsoever, but IMO if someone has a robots.txt and you're ignoring it, you're in the wrong. And if you're ignoring it and profiting off of ignoring it (as opposed to, say, doing academic research of some kind and ignoring it for science), you're a bad person.
- true_religion 14y agoRobots.txt doesn't apply if your program is acting via user commands. If I tell my browser to 'rip' Youtube.com, its just as fine as if I tell Youtube-mp3.org to rip a specific video for me. In both cases, technology is acting as a tool and not an automation.