GitHub Revamps Copyright Takedown Policy After Restoring YouTube-dl
GitHub revamps copyright takedown policy after restoring YouTube-dl:
The source code for YouTube-dl, a tool you can use to download videos from YouTube, is back up on GitHub after the code repository took it down in October following a DMCA complaint from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Citing a letter from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the EFF), GitHub says it ultimately found that the RIAA's complaint didn't have any merit.
[...]
This is the best possible outcome of the RIAA's attack on youtube-dl. Good on @GitHub for standing up for developers against DMCA § 1201 abuses.
The @EFF did amazing work representing the project, and you should read their letter: https://t.co/Whh0cKTgIFhttps://t.co/BT1aovWZx7
— Filippo Valsorda 💚🤍❤️ ✊ (@FiloSottile) November 16, 2020
If there's a silver lining to the episode, it's that GitHub is implementing new policies to avoid a repeat of a repeat situation moving forward. [...]
GitHub is also establishing a $1 million defense fund to provide legal aid to developers against suspect section 1201 claims, as well as doubling down on its lobbying work to amend the DMCA and other similar copyright laws across the world.
GitHub Reinstates Youtube-DL and Puts $1M in Takedown Defense Fund * TorrentFreak
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
GitHub has reinstated the youtube-dl repository after it concluded that the code doesn't violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/github-reinstates-youtube-dl-and-puts-1m-in-takedown-defense-fund-201116/
Standing Up for Developers: Youtube-dl is Back - the GitHub Blog
Standing up for developers: youtube-dl is back - The GitHub Blog:
Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project that enabled us to reverse a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown.
At GitHub, our priority is supporting open source and the developer community. And so we share developers' frustration with this takedown—especially since this project has many legitimate purposes. Our actions were driven by processes required to comply with laws like the DMCA that put platforms like GitHub and developers in a difficult spot. And our reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM), was inline with our values of putting developers first. We know developers want to understand what happened here, and want to know how GitHub will stand up for developers and refine our processes on these issues.
In this post, we provide answers to common questions about the DMCA and why GitHub handled this case the way we did, describe why circumvention claims deserve special treatment, and share how we're updating our policies and fighting to improve the law.
Previously:
Standing up for Developers: youtube-dl is Back
Yout LLC. Sues RIAA Over YouTube-DL DMCA Complaints
GitHub has Received a DMCA Takedown from RIAA for youtube-dl
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
Related Stories
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24872911
https://old.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/jgttnc/youtubedl_github_repository_disabled_due_to_a/
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md
Now when you go to their site, it reads:
Repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown.
This repository is currently disabled due to a DMCA takedown notice. We have disabled public access to the repository. The notice has been publicly posted.
If you are the repository owner, and you believe that your repository was disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification, you have the right to file a counter notice and have the repository reinstated. Our help articles provide more details on our DMCA takedown policy and how to file a counter notice. If you have any questions about the process or the risks in filing a counter notice, we suggest that you consult with a lawyer.
Also at 9to5Google
[2020-10-25 01:01:09 UTC: Updated title to more accurately reflect notice was given to GitHub, not to youtube-dl. --martyb]
RIAA Sued By YouTube-Ripping Site Over DMCA Anti-Circumvention Notices
A company operating a YouTube-ripping platform has sued the RIAA for sending "abusive" DMCA anti-circumvention notices to Google. According to the complaint and contrary to the RIAA's claims, the Yout service does not "descramble, decrypt, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair" YouTube's rolling cipher technology.
Last Friday, the RIAA caused [outrage] on the Internet when it filed a complaint that took down the open source software YouTube-DL from Github.
According to the RIAA, the "clear purpose" of YouTube-DL was to "circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube" and "reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use."
As the debate and controversy over the complaint rages on, a company based in the US that operates a YouTube-ripping platform has filed a lawsuit alleging that similar complaints, filed by the RIAA with Google, have caused its business great damage.
RIAA's YouTube-DL Takedown Ticks Off Developers and GitHub's CEO
An RIAA takedown request, which removed the YouTube-DL repository from GitHub, has ticked off developers and GitHub's CEO. Numerous people responded by copying and republishing the contested code, including in some quite clever ways. Meanwhile, GitHub's CEO is "annoyed" as well, offering help to get the repo reinstated.
Previously: GitHub has Received a DMCA Takedown from RIAA for youtube-dl
Standing up for developers: youtube-dl is back
Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project that enabled us to reverse a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown.
[...] GitHub handles DMCA claims to maximize protections for developers, and we designed our DMCA Takedown Policy with developers in mind. Nearly every platform with user-generated content accepts and processes DMCA takedown notices to comply with the law. For GitHub, many of those notices come from developers wanting us to enforce the terms of their open source licenses, for example, when someone is using their code without the proper attribution required by the open source license they adopted.
[...] As we explained, the key claim in the youtube-dl takedown is circumvention. Although we did initially take the project down, we understand that just because code can be used to access copyrighted works doesn't mean it can't also be used to access works in non-infringing ways. We also understood that this project's code has many legitimate purposes, including changing playback speeds for accessibility, preserving evidence in the fight for human rights, aiding journalists in fact-checking, and downloading Creative Commons-licensed or public domain videos. When we see it is possible to modify a project to remove allegedly infringing content, we give the owners a chance to fix problems before we take content down. If not, they can always respond to the notification disabling the repository and offer to make changes, or file a counter notice.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published five of the white papers it funded regarding questions about Microsoft Copilot. After Microsoft acquired GitHub, it set up a machine learning system to cull through its archive of software, called Copilot. The approach chosen and even the basic activity raises many questions starting with those of licensing.
Microsoft GitHub's announcement of an AI-driven Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS) program called Copilot -- which uses machine learning to autocomplete code for developers as they write software -- immediately raised serious questions for the free software movement and our ability to safeguard user and developer freedom. We felt these questions needed to be addressed, as a variety of serious implications were foreseen for the free software community and developers who use GitHub. These inquiries -- and others possibly yet to be discovered -- needed to be reviewed in depth.
In our call for papers, we set forth several areas of interest. Most of these areas centered around copyright law, questions of ownership for AI-generated code, and legal impacts for GitHub authors who use a GNU or other copyleft license(s) for their works. We are pleased to announce the community-provided research into these areas, and much more.
First, we want to thank everyone who participated by sending in their papers. We received a healthy response of twenty-two papers from members of the community. The papers weighed-in on the multiple areas of interest we had indicated in our announcement. Using an anonymous review process, we concluded there were five papers that would be best suited to inform the community and foster critical conversations to help guide our actions in the search for solutions.
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:52PM (12 children)
You people don't need to rip streams and pirate content. Why is youtube-dl and your ability to pirate content so important? You people say the content sucks but scream bloody murder when someone stops you from pirating it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:12PM
Let freedom ring. Evil Corp doesn't own us, Evil Corp doesn't own music, Evil Corp doesn't own the webs. They WILL own everything, if we don't stand up to them.
Do you want to pay a hundred dollars to Evil Corp for each and every child who sings, or even hums, 'Happy Birthday' to a friend, or even to themselves?
Stand up and fight. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6706919/happy-birthday-song-public-domain-warner-chappel [billboard.com]
You may be right, on one count. Maybe I don't 'need to' rip streams or copy content. But, it's a human right to enjoy music. It is not a corporate right for Evil Corp to lock every soundstream into perpetual copyright 'protection'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:12PM (2 children)
Youtube-dl isn't piracy. Per the Betamax ruling, I have the legal right to download videos to watch them offline or with a different player program, which is what youtube-dl allows. If the courts were worth anything, the fraudulent claims against it would be prosecuted.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:23PM (1 child)
People don't seem to understand that format and time shifting are legal. Whether it's from cable TV, or over the air, internet, discs, tapes, etc... source of the media doesn't matter.
If you're not redistributing it, personal use on your own terms is perfectly fine.
(Score: 5, Touché) by EEMac on Monday November 23 2020, @04:14AM
> People don't seem to understand that format and time shifting are legal.
It rarely comes up, even in news articles that cover related events. Corporations have a financial stake in people not knowing this.
(Score: 5, Funny) by leon_the_cat on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:23PM
I do it to annoy you. No other reason.
(Score: 4, Touché) by epitaxial on Monday November 23 2020, @12:32AM (2 children)
I'm not allowed so save any of the bits that are sent to my computer?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @12:50AM (1 child)
What are you, a hoarder? No sir, you may NOT save bits! You pay to see/hear/use a bit, then you pay again if you wish to see/hear/use that bit again. No hoarding bits!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @09:14AM
But I have paid once for the "1" and then again for the "0". That's all I keep getting now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @04:09AM
There are plenty of videos uploaded to YouTube that should be backed up, and have nothing to do with Hollywood MAFIAA content.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @05:19AM
I actually use youtube-dl for youtube videos fairly rarely, but I use it thru mpv to watch all kinds of embedded videos that don't work when js is disabled, or have very poor controls. I rarely keep the stuff I watch this way around, and what I do retain is largely stuff that's not being sold in any format.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @06:03PM
are you retarded or just trolling? not sure. sooo dumb.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 23 2020, @10:57PM
There are plenty of non-infringing uses of youtube-dl. Grabbing the latest thing the RIAA barfed into a file isn't a use case that interests me.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday November 23 2020, @04:31AM (2 children)
For decades, the MAFIAA has been hysterically screaming about copying. They're like cops who say "I feared for my life", only they say "I feared for my recording" when they go on the attack and fire off lawsuit after lawsuit, accusing the entire world population of infringement of rights that should be one of the people's inalienable rights, same as freedom of speech and religion. They have further construed these untenable and immoral rights to be much greater than is actually the case. Even without the exaggerations, it does not serve humanity that copyright be at all enforceable.
The ability to copy is a natural property of the universe, and is absolutely essential to education. To be against copying, and to slander it as piracy, is to be against education. The Founding Fathers thought education a necessary component of a functioning democracy, so that voters could make better informed choices. Therefore, to be anti-education is to be against democracy. In America, to oppose democracy is treason. Education is, of course, also essential for the continuation of civilization, without which we would have to reduce our population to the extremely low levels that Stone Age living can support.
I'd like to see the RIAA barred for a decade from filing any more lawsuits on matters of copyright. They need a long and very cold shower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2020, @03:10PM (1 child)
While I admire your sentiment, freedom to copy (while arguably a "freedom of speech") isn't specifically enumerated in the constitution, while copyright (sadly) is.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday November 24 2020, @09:58PM
Thanks. And true. But thankfully, the Constitution can be amended. Thomas Jefferson, who swore "eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" was very unsure whether copyright was a good idea. He basically punted on that issue. Now, however, we can confidently say that copyright never was a good idea.
I'd love to see an Amendment granting the people the Freedom to Copy. Not that we can't copy anyway regardless of the law. It would merely serve to further shut down all these pretentions of ownership over ideas. I understand now though that the law does not lead in these matters. Such an Amendment will only come about when copying has already been a de facto right for decades, and if it seems necessary to constantly remind those who would hoard knowledge that no one owns an idea. Copyright is a powerful drug, triggering artists' fears of loss, and playing upon the American conceit of individualism. As if genius is always singular, unique, lonely and never collaborates, and ideas form in a total vacuum and aren't mostly combinations and variations on older ideas.
It's much like the Civil War Amendments ending slavery. Enacted in the final days of the Civil War, after a settlement of the issue had already been forced on the battlefield. Wouldn't have been necessary, if slavery had not been enshrined in the Constitution in the first place. And neither the war nor the highest of laws could convince die hard Confederates to give up their propaganda and viciously wrong and hateful narratives that they used to justify their treachery. Took another freaking century to end Jim Crow, and now, 50 more years after that, Jim Crow actually enjoyed a revival that we can only hope will be very brief.
As to cries that without copyright, artists will starve, this is demonstrably false. Crowdfunding seems a most promising way forward, to encourage the creation of good art. Advertising revenue could be another. After all, that has worked for broadcast radio and TV for decades. What's needed is more exploration and construction of crowdfunding and other means of compensation. And certainly we can still stop plagiarism, and could set up some sort of royalty rights, for public performances that turn a profit, all of which are not based upon artificial restrictions upon and monitorings of copying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @09:52AM
Some advertising before Pluton blocks youtube-dl anyway.