Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Host of "youtube-dl" Web Site Sued by Major Record Labels

posted by martyb on Monday January 17 2022, @05:47AM   Printer-friendly

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Major Record Labels Sue Youtube-dl's Hosting Provider:

"We don't think the suit is justified," says Uberspace chief Jonas Pasche in comments to TorrentFreak.

"YouTube has measures to prevent users from downloading specific content, which they make use of for YouTube Movies and Music: DRM. They don't use that technology here, enabling a download rather trivially. One may view youtube-dl as just a specialized browser, and you wouldn't ban Firefox just because you can use it to access music videos on YouTube."

According to an Uberspace lawyer, the aim of the lawsuit is to achieve some kind of precedent or "fundamental judgment". Success could mean that other companies could be obliged to take action in similarly controversial legal situations.

And the alleged illegality of youtube-dl is indeed controversial. While YouTube's terms of service generally disallow downloading, in Germany there is the right to make a private copy, with local rights group GEMA collecting fees to compensate for just that. Equally, when users upload content to YouTube under a Creative Commons license, for example, they agree to others in the community making use of that content.

[...] "Not only does YouTube pay license fees for music, we all pay fees for the right to private copying in the form of the device fee, which is levied with every purchase of smartphones or storage media," says Reda.

"Despite this double payment, Sony, Universal and Warner Music want to prevent us from exercising our right to private copying by saving YouTube videos locally on the hard drive."

The question of whether YouTube's "rolling cipher" is (or is not) a technical protection measure is currently the hot and recurring topic in a lawsuit filed by YouTube-ripping site Yout.com against the RIAA in the United States. After more than a year, the warring factions are no closer to an agreement.

This comes just as (2021-12-17) the main developer changed his status to, "inactive."[1]

Gee, I wonder why?

In my opinion, "the powers that be" won't be satisfied until they get the youtube-dl program completely chased into the underground. Is the successor yt-dlp) next?

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Host of "youtube-dl" Web Site Sued by Major Record Labels | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 29 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Monday January 17 2022, @06:40AM (2 children)

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Monday January 17 2022, @06:40AM (#1213347) Journal

    A little over 10 years ago, I was worried that they'd find a way to force people to point a camera at the screen for consumers to be able to copy movies for legitimate purposes. It was clear that was their goal. But, they lost. The HDMI master key was released, and it's as easy as ever to copy Blu-Rays, Netflix, and whatever else you want.

    It shows just how stupid they are that they're going after youtube-dl. They have tons bigger problems that they have no chance of solving.

    They lost.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   5  

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Monday January 17 2022, @12:09PM

    by driverless (4770) on Monday January 17 2022, @12:09PM (#1213374)

    From my experience with these guys, they combine both the subtlety and the intelligence of a sledgehammer. They'll fixate on one particular thing and doggedly pursue it for as long as they can while ignoring, or possibly not even being aware of, any technical advice on the topic, and once they're done they'll declare victory and move on to something else. So having youtube-dl as a lightning rod for them, while it kinda sucks to be youtube-dl, means everyone else gets a free pass for the duration.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @05:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @05:27PM (#1213421)

    A little over 10 years ago, I was worried that they'd find a way to force people to point a camera at the screen for consumers to be able to copy movies for legitimate purposes. It was clear that was their goal. The HDMI master key was released, and it's as easy as ever to copy Blu-Rays, Netflix, and whatever else you want.

    The key to understand movie DRM is that while this may appear to be a goal it is not the actual goal of most schemes. "Copy protection" is more of a marketing tactic.

    HDCP and related DRM exists so that movie studios and various other companies (such as Intel) can collect royalties from AV device manufacturers that otherwise have nothing to do with your business. Using ordinary blu-rays specifically as an example, it works basically like this:

    • First, you arrange for as many blu-ray discs as possible to be protected by DRM (AACS). This is simple enough for you and your partners, but you can use "copy protection" as an excuse to convince unrelated third parties to also use DRM on discs they produce, even though this is totally pointless for those third parties (as you say, it is ineffective for this purpose in practice) and maybe you can even get them to pay you ($$)
    • Now, anyone who wants to make a blu-ray player has to implement the DRM scheme. Otherwise, it won't play people's blu-ray collections and nobody will buy it. So blu-ray player manufacturers have to come to you for licensing and royalties ($$)
    • One of the requirements of that licensing is that the players have to also implement HDCP on HDMI. So now the same thing happens for receiver devices like televisions: they have to implement the DRM scheme or they won't work with blu-ray players and nobody will buy it. So television manufacturers have to come to you for licensing and royalties ($$)

    Leaked keys and savvy users breaking the DRM doesn't really make any difference. Since it's illegal in certain countries (such as the United States) to actually break the DRM that basically ensures the big players will pay up. You just need to avoid DRM-stripping devices becoming super commonplace.