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Does YouTube allow massive scraping like this in their ToS?

by okdood64 1y ago

dangoodmanUT 1y ago
What ToS
- bobmcnamara 1y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms ?
mouse_ 1y ago
Probably not. Who cares at this point? No one is stopping ML sets from being primarily pirated. The current power is effectively dismantling copyright for AI related work.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  > The current power is effectively dismantling copyright for AI related work. Out of the loop apparently, could you elaborate? By "the current power" I take you mean the current US administration?
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    Trump fired the head of the copyright office: https://www.heise.de/en/news/After-criticism-of-AI-training-practices-Trump-fires-head-of-copyright-office-10379873.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/After-criticism-of-AI-training-... The "Big Beautiful Bill" contains a clause that prohibits state "AI" legislation. Trump has a "Crypto and AI czar" who is very active in promoting "AI" on his YouTube propaganda outlet. The same czar also promoted, pre-election of course, accelerated peace with Russia and then stopped talking about the subject altogether.
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      Oh wow okay, genuinely missed these. Thanks.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago
  > Who cares at this point Anyone who has a shred of integrity. I'm not a fan of overreaching copyright laws, but they've been strictly enforced for years now. Decades, even. They've ruined many lives, like how they killed Aaron Swartz. But now, suddenly, violating copyright is totally okay and carries no consequences whatsoever because the billionaires decided that's how they can get richer now? If you want to even try to pretend you don't live in a plutocracy and that the rule of law matters at all these developments should concern you.
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    Aaron Swartz died of suicide, not copyright. His death was a tragedy but it wasn't done to him.
    - marcus_holmes 1y ago
      There's an English phrase "hounded to death", meaning that someone was pursued and hassled until they died. It doesn't specify the cause of death, but I think the assumption would be suicide, since you can't actually die of fatigue. I think that's what was done to Aaron Swartz.
      - shadowgovt 1y ago
        Many people have dealt with the law, with copyright infringement, even with gross amounts of it, and had the book thrown at them, and survived the experience. Swartz was ill. It is a tragedy he did not survive the experience, and indeed, trial is very stressful. But he was no more hounded than any defendant who comes under federal scrutiny and has to defend themselves in a court of law via the trial system. Kevin Mitnick spent a year in prison (first incarceration) and survived it. Swartz was offered six months and committed suicide. I don't know how much we should change of the system to protect the Aaron Swartzs of the world; that's the mother of all Chesterton's Fences.
        shiroiuma 1y ago
MaxPock 1y ago
They don't and neither do I allow my site - whose content I found on Gemini -scraped
klysm 1y ago
I don't think they can legally prevent it
perching_aix 1y ago
My "lawyer" (gpt4o) claims that since YouTube is merely a non-exclusive licensee of the user content upload to their service, even if they have such restrictions in their ToS (they do), they likely would not hold up in court, citing [0]. Something about that non-exclusivity meaning they cannot constrain the copyright further on their own terms. Which I guess makes sense? And since scraping of publicly available data is not illegal (in the US, according to the aforementioned "lawyer"), it seems like it's okay? Not legal advice. [0] https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/05/district-court-adopts-broad-view https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/05/distri...
nerdsniper 1y ago
Per HiQ vs. LinkedIn, it doesn't matter what their ToS says if the scraper didn't have to agree to the ToS to scrape the data. YouTube will serve videos to someone who isn't logged in. So if you've never agreed to YouTube's ToS, you can scrape the videos. If YT forced everyone to log in before they could watch a video, then anyone who wants to scrape videos would have had to agree to the ToS at some point.
- olyjohn 1y ago
  It won't serve me videos if I'm not logged in. It tells me to sign in to prove I'm not a bot. How do these people get around this?
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    It does for me, in USA on AT&T Fiber using Safari in private browsing mode. Chrome in incognito as well. And phone on mobile YouTube (though I didn't test with uninstalling/reinstalling to reset IDFA and IDFV, so it's not really a valid test)

Does YouTube allow massive scraping like this in their ToS?

dangoodmanUT 1y ago

What ToS

bobmcnamara 1y ago
https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms ?

mouse_ 1y ago

Probably not. Who cares at this point? No one is stopping ML sets from being primarily pirated. The current power is effectively dismantling copyright for AI related work.

perching_aix 1y ago
> The current power is effectively dismantling copyright for AI related work. Out of the loop apparently, could you elaborate? By "the current power" I take you mean the current US administration?
- bgwalter 1y ago
  Trump fired the head of the copyright office: https://www.heise.de/en/news/After-criticism-of-AI-training-practices-Trump-fires-head-of-copyright-office-10379873.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/After-criticism-of-AI-training-... The "Big Beautiful Bill" contains a clause that prohibits state "AI" legislation. Trump has a "Crypto and AI czar" who is very active in promoting "AI" on his YouTube propaganda outlet. The same czar also promoted, pre-election of course, accelerated peace with Russia and then stopped talking about the subject altogether.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    Oh wow okay, genuinely missed these. Thanks.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
snickerdoodle12 1y ago
> Who cares at this point Anyone who has a shred of integrity. I'm not a fan of overreaching copyright laws, but they've been strictly enforced for years now. Decades, even. They've ruined many lives, like how they killed Aaron Swartz. But now, suddenly, violating copyright is totally okay and carries no consequences whatsoever because the billionaires decided that's how they can get richer now? If you want to even try to pretend you don't live in a plutocracy and that the rule of law matters at all these developments should concern you.
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  Aaron Swartz died of suicide, not copyright. His death was a tragedy but it wasn't done to him.
  - marcus_holmes 1y ago
    There's an English phrase "hounded to death", meaning that someone was pursued and hassled until they died. It doesn't specify the cause of death, but I think the assumption would be suicide, since you can't actually die of fatigue. I think that's what was done to Aaron Swartz.
    - shadowgovt 1y ago
      Many people have dealt with the law, with copyright infringement, even with gross amounts of it, and had the book thrown at them, and survived the experience. Swartz was ill. It is a tragedy he did not survive the experience, and indeed, trial is very stressful. But he was no more hounded than any defendant who comes under federal scrutiny and has to defend themselves in a court of law via the trial system. Kevin Mitnick spent a year in prison (first incarceration) and survived it. Swartz was offered six months and committed suicide. I don't know how much we should change of the system to protect the Aaron Swartzs of the world; that's the mother of all Chesterton's Fences.
      - shiroiuma 1y ago

MaxPock 1y ago

They don't and neither do I allow my site - whose content I found on Gemini -scraped

klysm 1y ago

I don't think they can legally prevent it

perching_aix 1y ago

My "lawyer" (gpt4o) claims that since YouTube is merely a non-exclusive licensee of the user content upload to their service, even if they have such restrictions in their ToS (they do), they likely would not hold up in court, citing [0]. Something about that non-exclusivity meaning they cannot constrain the copyright further on their own terms. Which I guess makes sense? And since scraping of publicly available data is not illegal (in the US, according to the aforementioned "lawyer"), it seems like it's okay? Not legal advice. [0] https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/05/district-court-adopts-broad-view https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/05/distri...

nerdsniper 1y ago

Per HiQ vs. LinkedIn, it doesn't matter what their ToS says if the scraper didn't have to agree to the ToS to scrape the data. YouTube will serve videos to someone who isn't logged in. So if you've never agreed to YouTube's ToS, you can scrape the videos. If YT forced everyone to log in before they could watch a video, then anyone who wants to scrape videos would have had to agree to the ToS at some point.

olyjohn 1y ago
It won't serve me videos if I'm not logged in. It tells me to sign in to prove I'm not a bot. How do these people get around this?
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  It does for me, in USA on AT&T Fiber using Safari in private browsing mode. Chrome in incognito as well. And phone on mobile YouTube (though I didn't test with uninstalling/reinstalling to reset IDFA and IDFV, so it's not really a valid test)