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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?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @10:27AM (8 children)
When was the last time a multinational megacorporation was successfully prosecuted and hit with a meaningful[1] fine for fraud? I don't know about overseas, but here in the Capitalist Kleptocracy of Amerika the crime of fraud is standard operating procedure for publicly-traded companies. When they're not committing fraud against their customers or the general public they're committing fraud against their
slavesemployees through wage theft. They do it because they have been repeatedly shown that they will NEVER, EVER be meaningfully fined for it.[1]A meaningful fine would be a fine that exceeds 10% of the company's market cap. Anything less they can (and do) write off as an operating expense. Want to see Scamazon keep forcing their slaves to urinate in bottles? Fine them any amount less than $200 BILLION for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @12:35PM
Would you bite the hand that's feeding you? There's never going to be "meaningful" fining, only bits which don't hurt the capital owner but give some kind of satisfaction to the (largely dumb) masses so people don't get on the streets with pitchforks.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday January 17 2022, @01:43PM (1 child)
I am not sure fines can ever be the answer. Meaningful competition definitively works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @07:06PM
I don't think fines will work either. Might I suggest heads on pikes? For egregious corporate fraud, decapitate all the C-level execs and put their heads on pikes outside the corporate headquarters, as a warning to their successors.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 17 2022, @03:05PM (2 children)
May I direct your attention to the EU and Big Tech? Google and Facebook are getting slapped around pretty frequently over there. Also, Chine doesn't tolerate any competition in the surveillance industry inside their own country.
I use those examples only to illustrate that we can do something here in the US, if we only decide that it need be done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @10:33PM (1 child)
If a corporation has to be "slapped around pretty frequently," it is probably because they aren't afraid of getting hit.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 17 2022, @11:14PM
True, but, EU fines seem to be growing in size. Maybe not fast enough, but they are growing. At some point, the profit to risk assessment is going to start guiding Big Tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 17 2022, @03:29PM (1 child)
Intellectual property laws are antithetical to capitalism. And capitalism assumes full transparency and doesn't tolerate fraud. Your problem is not with capitalism.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 17 2022, @05:30PM
Copyright and freedom of thought are on a collision course.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.