How journalists use youtube-dl

https://freedom.press/news/riaa-github-youtube-dl-journalist-tool/

by thisisparker • 6 years ago

1651 324 6 years ago

freedom.press

underdeserver• 6 years ago

youtube-dl has so many uses. This DMCA stuff is outrageous.

I hope they put it up onn a Github-like site outside the US.

djsumdog• 6 years ago

My two big uses cases for youtube-dl:

1) Downloading videos to use later in editing for analysis pieces / editorial videos.

2) Download videos that may disappear in a "No longer available" blackhole.

The 2nd is incredibly useful and telling when you go back, look up videos by their ID, and see what has been deleted. I'd also recommend changing the OUTPUT format to include the channel name or Twitter account, so you can easily see if an account or channel has been censored/banned.

ricardobeat• 6 years ago

Wish I had thought of #2 long ago. The majority of videos I've saved are long gone.

masklinn2• 6 years ago

My main use on youtube-dl is downloading videos to watch them in places with slow / unreliable DSL.

Watching a youtube video on a slow (1k) DSL has become entirely impossible because a few years back youtube (seemingly) stopped buffering the entire video, so you can't start the video, pause, go do something else and watch it once it's loaded. Not only that, but it really does not handle either temporary disconnections or high latency spikes well.

userbinator• 6 years ago

I don't even keep most of the videos I downloaded due to that, as they are not worth watching more than once anyway, so it could be argued that it's no different than how people usually use YouTube.

AFAIK, (good) browsers still give you the direct links if you know where to look, but the slow boiling of the frog is really evident with things like hiding View Source and such (often under the guise of "usability".) The demise of youtube-dl, along with Google's pushing of their proprietary protocols and other continued user hostilities surely paints a sad picture for the freedom of the Internet...

tracker18• 6 years ago

I've had similar issues on a recent camping trip since the switch from google play music to youtube music... when I lose connectivity, there's no buffer, and seems to be no songs kept to be able to play anything, and it was a really crappy experience.

May have to go back to spotify or offline mp3 files, I don't miss having to manage my own playlists tbh.

fogihujy2• 6 years ago

Ditto, but with slow/unreliable 3G. It's perfectly possible to watch a 4k video with max quality that way, even if one has a poor connection. Otherwise, I'd be stuck at 240p much of the time.

samoa424• 6 years ago

try out mpv. with cranked up caches it will buffer the whole vid in ram and bobs your uncle.

dEnigma• 6 years ago

It is really distressing to see how many of the videos in my, admittedly quite large, favourites list are gone by now. Even ones that I only added in the past few weeks. Either simply "Deleted", "Private" or "Removed/Blocked by the copyright holder". In most cases I have trouble even finding out what the title of the video even was.

blevin• 6 years ago

One layer of the internet is about packets, another is about ordered sequential streams — and both are widely supported protocols. Above these could potentially sit a dissemination layer, retaining and persisting anything of interest. But in a legal system where information can be speech or property, it is problematic to do that as a standard protocol. Instead we have archive.org, The Archive Team, BitTorrent, and a million progressively less durable options from there, including some of us running youtube-dl on videos of interest, grabbing PDF’s off Arxiv, SSRN, etc. I’m not sure what to do about any of this except a yearly donation to archive.org, and accepting the great distributed fitness function of fate.

BLKNSLVR• 6 years ago

This is an example of the dichotomy between "the internet remembers everything" and the inherent ephemerality of electronic data (effort is required to ensure it remains un-destroyed).

I self-host some things because I like the technical challenge, and what I've found is that the effort required to maintain the online presence of the data is quite demanding. Less so if it's outsourced, but without actively 'tending the garden', it will inevitably disappear at least from the public-facing internet.

The ephemerality is also exacerbated by Google / Facebook account terminations.

AlbinoDrought• 6 years ago

I've been distraught at the same thing. I had a few playlists that I grew over time, and it's annoying to go back and see gaps of "[Deleted video]" where your favorites used to be. I'm curious to know if you've found a solution for this.

Personally I've started locally saving anything I think I would want to watch or reference again. When favoriting something or saving it to a playlist, I download it too. I started off with using youtube-dl on the command line and have experimented with the "Import from YouTube" function on Peertube but ended up with a tiny cobbled-together video platform, importer (youtube-dl wrapper), and Firefox extension. I think the next step will be easily saving non-video things - probably recording WARCs?

nitrogen4• 6 years ago

1) Downloading videos to use later in editing for analysis pieces / editorial videos.

I wonder if certain famous YouTubers used youtube-dl for this purpose. How else would you download, edit, and analyze a video's editing or special effects?

Fnoord2• 6 years ago

On Twitch streamers have a browser window open and pause it to comment.

retromagik• 6 years ago

There’s plenty of online tools and browser extensions to accomplish the same task (I wonder how many of those use YouTube-dl on the backend)

heavyset_go2• 6 years ago

#1 is an activity protected by fair use, and something fairly important. Imagine a world where you can't reference images or clips in your journalism or reviews, forever having to rely on only licensed material and descriptions.

Google2344• 6 years ago

Fair use does not override the TOS which YouTube-DP violates

abhgh• 6 years ago

My primary use case has been to download talks and watch them later. I frequently used to work out of cafes (not since Feb of course) where the connection may not be reliable. Youtube-dl was very helpful in those cases.

wolco2• 6 years ago

I never downloaded videos from youtube until this came up. Didn't realize how easy it was.

est31• 6 years ago

Indeed, it should be good practice for any journalist to download copies of online material they are reporting about (not just video, but anything), for the case that they are being deleted or altered. In the old world, you had a piece of paper or a document that you could store somewhere. An URL is not a way of storing the content, it can always disappear.

arendtio3• 6 years ago

Another valid use-case is to use the hardware acceleration with your native video player. AFAIK, mpv uses youtube-dl under the hood to play youtube videos. For a long time the video acceleration in browsers wasn't very good for Linux users, so we used players like mpv instead to watch high resolution content.

jglauche2• 6 years ago

it still isn't. I can't watch 720p videos on my thin client with browser overhead, but I can with mpv.

cdrt• 6 years ago

What browser are you using? Google has been known to make YouTube perform worse on browsers that aren’t Chrome.

swebs• 6 years ago

It still isn't. The Youtube player is garbage and full of tearing.

amiga-workbench• 6 years ago

Yup, with MPV I can watch video on a Pentium M without any dropped frames, and this is on a computer where the web is largely unusable.

samoa424• 6 years ago

also a question of codec.

h264 is still the only widely supported in-hardware decodeable codec out there (cheapest for the client) but google serves webm by default (cheapest for them and built in-house)

ytdl-format lets you choose

shmerl• 6 years ago

I hope developers are working with someone to fight back against RIAA trolls.

CobrastanJorji2• 6 years ago

Youtube-dl had some good notes in their README about legitimate uses and an explanation about how they tried to avoid adding sites that specialized in infringing content, but they really did themselves a legal disservice by explicitly using copyrighted music video content as tests. That will not help their argument at all. Youtube-dl absolutely has important and completely legal uses, reporting being among them, but the law doesn't care whether it CAN be used for legal purposes. The law only cares if the tool was "primarily designed" or "marketed" or "has only limited non-infringing purpose."

On the other hand, I'm no lawyer, but I think there's a (possibly bad) argument that youtube-dl does not violate 17 USC §§1201(a)(2)(a) because it does not circumvent any technological measures to control access to any content. The video is transferred entirely in the clear to any anonymous users that request it. Youtube-dl makes no false claims or breaks no cryptography or encryption. What measure is in place that is being circumvented?

rbecker2• 6 years ago

Downloading copyrighted videos, just like home taping, is legal. There was a supreme court case deciding that the latter is legal. I have yet to hear any reasoning why "home taping, but on the internet" would not fall under that same precedent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive....

roywiggins5• 6 years ago

Distributing a tool whose primary purpose is circumventing DRM is forbidden by the DMCA. The DMCA was signed long after the home-taping precedent, so that precedent doesn't really speak to what is and isn't allowed under the DMCA. Fair Use rights exist but if a law says "this isn't fair use", then it's not.

filmgirlcw9• 6 years ago

Because this is about distribution, not a home copy. You could copy and paste the test code into a terminal window and download the video. That’s not the same as a home recording.

nullc5• 6 years ago

did themselves a legal disservice by explicitly using copyrighted music video content as tests.

They had no alternative other than not having tests for that particular functionality. The tests were testing youtube-partner specific functionality: the procedure needed to download content from some youtube partners is different.

Moreover, the tests just throw away the downloaded material... it would be entirely reasonable for a court to conclude that there is no copyright interest involved in that activity at all and would be extraordinarily unlikely that any court would find it to be anything but fair use if they did conclude a copyright was involved at all.

If it hadn't been the test cases the RIAA probably would have dug up some old forum post advocating infringement by some occasional contributor. They were always going to argue something.

filmgirlcw9• 6 years ago

The fact that they had to have tests set to get around certain partners — partners who, it could be argued, had different provisions to try to limit the download of their content - works against them.

In retrospect, it would have been much better to link to an external repo or site or source for the test file, rather than to have that as part of the GitHub repo.

ETA: you’re right that they were always going to go after something, but the action for GitHub to take down the repo wouldn’t be arguable if the test file wasn’t in the repo. It’s possible they would have gone to issues/comments within the project (another reason, in retrospect, to host that stuff separately), but in this case there was stuff in the source code that the RIAA can reasonably argue would lead to infringement.

jcranmer2• 6 years ago

The law only cares if the tool was "primarily designed" or "marketed" or "has only limited non-infringing purpose."

The first two elements have a mens rea implication behind them: you have to demonstrate the intent of the developers. That RIAA's strongest evidence of intent is buried in a unit test, and this seeming intent flies against the evidence in the far more prominent README that is discussing its unsuitability for infringing content. Furthermore, they can also demonstrate from their own practice in history that they refuse pull requests and close issues were people are clearly trying to use it only for infringing use cases.

rbecker2• 6 years ago

We're lucky it wasn't forced off an app store on a locked platform. Then we'd be begging some corporation to be allowed to run it..

sesuximo• 6 years ago

Imo... people should be able to download stuff for free if they’re able to see it for free. The “you can see it but you must watch an ad” model is weird and leads to unenforceable/wacky situations like this

(I’m not really a stakeholder tho so who cares what I think)

WilTimSon• 6 years ago

It's strange to me because I've been using adblokcers for as long as I've been watching things online, as do a large percentage of people, I'm sure. So does it really matter that much to YouTube when I download some video, considering me watching it brings it literally no benefit? What's the gain here?

bleepblorp4• 6 years ago

Control.

Intellectual property law is about controlling what you can see, and do, with your own eyes, ears, and hardware.

If you stream a video on YouTube, YouTube can arbitrarily take it away from you whenever they want. If you download a video from YouTube, it's yours to keep. Tools like youtube-dl take away the power YouTube has over you, and that's an unacceptable loss to the ownership class even if they suffer no financial losses.

comeonseriously3• 6 years ago

The “you can see it but you must watch and ad” model...

... funds OTA television. Also funds YT.

With OTA, it is okay to record OTA broadcasts using a VCR, so I'm not sure why youtube-dl would be different.

pwinnski• 6 years ago

The different, Google would argue, is that YouTube-dl doesn't download the ads, while a VCR captures ads and content alike.

But really, if the VCR were invented today, it would be made illegal.

ryukafalz• 6 years ago

DMCA section 1201 is not about copyright infringement. It’s there to make things that are not copyright infringement illegal.

This is how John Deere got away with prohibiting farmers from repairing their tractors, etc. This is why time-shifting and format-shifting were just fine for OTA/cable television/CDs/etc but are practically nonexistent today.

criddell• 6 years ago

I never thought of the VCR comparison before and it's interesting. Is recording a video delivered over IP different than recording a video delivered OTA or via cable (which is probably IP these days)?

rektide3• 6 years ago

Worth reminding people that Big Content Holding industry came all too close to getting VHS tapes outlawed.

In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Sony could continue to sell its Betamax videocassette recorder, overruling the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judgement that held Sony liable for consumers’ copyright infringement.

https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-s...

Same s*, different decade.

codegladiator• 6 years ago

FWIW I was contacted by a "prestigious" publisher (the ken) and it was a story against google. The journalist was not even ready to listen to the "pros", she was just interested in whats the harm.

kavalec• 6 years ago

What's the best "use case" for launching this offshore?

motohagiography2• 6 years ago

I used ffmpeg and audacity with youtube-dl to download and do file and spectrograph analysis on a faked political video. That analysis showing how the audio was spliced together may have killed the story before it got legs.

In an era of fakes and deepfakes, we need tools like youtube-dl more than ever.

AnonsLadder• 6 years ago

That's freaking awesome

brokenmachine2• 6 years ago

Did you post an article about it? I'd be interested to read it.

lostgame• 6 years ago

This is probably one of the coolest and most underrated comments in this topic!

Could you tell us more about this process?

motohagiography2• 6 years ago

Thanks, it's way less cool when I write spectrogram instead of spectrograph. My mistake on that part.

If you use those tools, it's really straight forward process of using the tools. I didn't know about Audacity until I had spent most of my time figuring out ffmpeg/ffplay. It was an amateur effort, but I've done a lot of security analysis.

kortex3• 6 years ago

In an era of fakes and deepfakes, we need tools like youtube-dl more than ever.

I've been working on deepfake detection for the past two years. I use pytube3 and youtube-dl to scrape hours and hours of footage, not just youtube, but cspan, news sites, anything I can get my hands on. I have ~100 hours pulled so far, at multiple encoding rates.

Facebook recently changed their API and now the best I can scrape easily is 240p. That's insufficient to detect the artifacts the models need to train on. I can only pull 1/3rd of cspan videos I can watch through the viewer because again, api changes. It's a constant cat and mouse.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that if I don't have those wonderful folks out there keeping these tools and test suites up-to-date, this project is massively disadvantaged.

I don't have any public release assets at the moment, but you can read about Siwei Lyu and Hany Farid, who are leading the charge in deepfake detection.

http://www.cs.albany.edu/~lsw/

https://futurism.com/expert-online-disinfo-covid-black-lives...

jacobwilliamroy• 6 years ago

Jokes on them! I have the source! And if it ever breaks I know how to patch it!

digdigdag• 6 years ago

A long time ago, I wrote and maintained a fairly used Userscript plugin to scrape and download YouTube videos. Let me tell you -- without constant updates (which I've gotten complacent of by using `pip install --upgrade` with youtube-dl), I have forgotten just how much of a hassle it is to constantly fix the HTML parser used to identify and generate download URLs. The reality is, any front-end source code change on YouTube would potentially break the script, sometimes necessitating complete re-write of the parsing scheme. That is all to say, I hope you've set aside ample time and coffee for this hobby...

comeonseriously3• 6 years ago

How is using youtube-dl different to using a "VCR" and recording OTA television?

roywiggins5• 6 years ago

RIAA alleges that it bypasses a form of DRM. Youtube tries to obfuscate the full URL of videos, so youtube-dl does a little dance to work out where to download it from. If this is a form of DRM, then the DMCA plausibly applies.

comeonseriously3• 6 years ago

So, the argument is whether or not obfuscation is DRM? If that's true anyone can claim that some weird URL scheme is DRM. That's a dangerous slope to tread.

ineedasername• 6 years ago

It's a bit tragic: Most tools have a potentially negative/illegal use case. These developers advertising those uses, even if it was just in the source code, wasn't a good idea. Now there is an uphill battle to legitimize its use again.

ugjka2• 6 years ago

There's a fork of youtube-dl seems to be pretty active: https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc

oger• 6 years ago

I did not look at the repo — but has anyone checked if this is trustworthy? Probably many are looking for a new source - providing a nice and convenient entry point to seed dubious / dangerous additions (aka. malware).

ugjka2• 6 years ago

From Readme "youtube-dlc is a fork of youtube-dl with the intention of getting features tested by the community merged in the tool faster, since youtube-dl's development seems to be slowing down. (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/26462)"

LockAndLol• 6 years ago

Still on github though. It's only a question of time till it's found. They'd do themselves a favor by moving off of there.

contravariant2• 6 years ago

Given that they've yet to clean up the copy people spliced into github/dmca [1], I reckon it might take a while, if not another DMCA.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882921

lmilcin2• 6 years ago

Obviously, lots of people use it for legitimate reasons.

I for example, use it to download large amounts of material for when I am offline while sailing. Programming tutorials to learn some useful stuff while offline, entire university courses on interesting topics, etc. There aren't many practical ways for me to do it.

tssva3• 6 years ago

I imagine YouTube would argue this isn't a legitimate reason since they provide YouTube Premium as a paid subscription which includes as one of its perks the ability to download material for viewing offline.

lmilcin2• 6 years ago

I actually pay for YouTube Premium.

Have you ACTUALLY tried to download? I am using latest Chrome on Linux and I don't even have the option. Downloading to the phone is not a workable option for me, I need to be able to see it on laptop screen and I need a lot of it for weeks of being offline. And couple other problems like videos ceasing to be available for whatever unknown reason, suddenly.

californical• 6 years ago

Then you’re violating YouTube’s terms of service, sure, but the tool you’re downloading with is not unlawful because you’re violating YT’s terms

bleepblorp4• 6 years ago

[Post deleted after 60 minutes. It has had adequate exposure.]

nullc5• 6 years ago

I don't follow the argument that the procedural invalidity makes Github more culpable.

In a normal, procedurally valid, DMCA the only harm to the host for not following the procedure is that they lose the safe harbor.

In this case because it isn't a question of infringement there isn't a safe harbor at all.

In either case a company can choose to take something down because it wants to reduce its exposure to litigation.

I'm disappointed that even after acquisition github has continued with the beyond-industry-standard level of aggressiveness with takedowns. But I don't see how you conclude that the anti-circumvention complaint makes github more in the wrong for complying.

the8472• 6 years ago

is that they lose the safe harbor.

For that particular instance or permanently?

subroutine2• 6 years ago

Based on your response, and the parent comment, it seems like content hosts have a responsibility: to determine if a DMCA takedown request is valid. If a host doesn't see this as a responsibility, and simply complies with every DMCA (whether valid, invalid, or even fraudulent), I'd agree with op... the host is culpable whenever they comply with an invalid or fraudulent DMCA request. Maybe not culpable in a legal sense, but certainly they are to blame (otherwise who?) for complying with invalid DMCA.

grecy• 6 years ago

that Microsoft/Github pulled youtube-dl offline by choosing to respond to a DMCA takedown order that is not procedurally valid.... The fact that Microsoft didn't tell the RIAA to go Disney themselves means that 100% of the blame lies at Microsoft's feet. No exceptions.

What you said is clearly correct, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect any company to insert themselves in the middle of these disputes. At scale it's impossible.

Imagine you run a forum with millions of members and tens of thousands of posts per day. You get a stack of DMCA takedown requests every day. Do you think it's feasible for you to scrutinize each and every one, and take a moral stand on those you deem 'not procedurally valid' ? How much do you think that might cost? What happens when you call one wrong and the law comes to YOU?

For anything to really change, it's clear someone will have to go after the RIAA.. (EFF maybe?)

bleepblorp4• 6 years ago

Given the number of fraudulent DMCA takedowns that are created by bots and malicious actors, they absolutely have to be individually examined by competent legal counsel.

At one point Microsoft was issuing DMCA takedowns against (then) openOffice.org mirrors, allegedly on the grounds that any large file with a name that contained the word 'office' must be a 'pirated' version of MS Office. Taking these takedowns at face value would have ended the openOffice.org project and absolutely could not have been respected in good faith.

These kind of abuses are ongoing from multiple parties, including bots, copyright trolls, and crazed ideologues who file completely fraudulent DMCA takedowns to force anonymous personalities to disclose their identities. There is no alternative but to consider DMCA takedowns on legal merits because so many of them have no merits whatsoever.

Having the funding to do this 'at scale' is just as much a cost of doing business as paying for power and connectivity. If hosting platforms don't want to do this, then they should purchase an amendment to the DMCA to impose criminal sanctions on entities that serve fraudulent DMCA takedowns.

rektide3• 6 years ago

Under section 1201 anti-circumvention rules, unless Youtube-DL enters the US legal system & counter-notifies, Github/Microsoft face CRIMINAL liability charges with steep JAIL TIME and a half-million dollar fine.

I want to chew Microsoft out for this one, but the US-based copyright mafia have built themselves an unbelievably vicious draconian set of laws that prevent any sort of challenge, including those coming from scientific inquiry or examination. Anti-circumvention is the most world-hating corporate-owned-world flaming garbage that could be devised, and violating it comes with unbelievably mercilessly cruel criminal penalties.

The menace of this threat has silenced science & speech, has prevented mankind from examining the world about them, learning of it, & discussing it. We have outlawed knowledge, outlawed idea, literally criminalized knowing something about the world with steep jail time. This is a farce, of the highest order, one of the greatest shames the law has done unto itself.

Great recent thread from Doctorow on this: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/105090187888073250

I also recommend Bunnie Huang's "Why I'm Suing the US Government", https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4782

Anti-circumvention laws must be stopped.

nitrogen4• 6 years ago

I feel like this line from your link to Bunnie Huang's blog is apropos to many of the conflicts of our time:

Like the parable of the frog in the well, their creativity has been confined to a small patch, not realizing how big and blue the sky could be if they could step outside that well.

That was posted in 2016; does anyone know what happened with that lawsuit?

d1sxeyes• 6 years ago

It's not Github/Microsoft's responsibility to make legal determinations about whether a particular DMCA takedown notice is valid.

I completely agree, on the other hand, that a takedown notice issued knowingly without proper grounds should be penalised severely.

bleepblorp4• 6 years ago

It's not Github/Microsoft's responsibility to make legal determinations about whether a particular DMCA takedown notice is valid.

Except, by choosing to honor it, they decided that it is legally valid.

The appropriate response to a copyright claim against material that the claimant clearly does not own is 'unless you can prove that you own this material, come back with a court order.'

amatecha• 6 years ago

I mean, to be fair, they probably have one of the most colossal legal teams of any tech company, no?

Regardless, I think they takedown without giving the "DMCA" complaint much scrutiny because the risk of penalty for NOT taking action is greater than just taking down the repo(s) risk-free.

Github's ToS: which says "we have the right (though not the obligation) to refuse or remove any User-Generated Content that, in our sole discretion, violates any GitHub terms or policies." ( https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-... )

I have to say it IS strange they took down content based on a letter that doesn't prove or even really suggest copyright infringement has taken place (only that it COULD, as a result of using the software), and their own ToS says "There may be legal consequences for sending a false or frivolous takedown notice." ( https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-... )

subroutine2• 6 years ago

Did someone DMCA this post?

cheeze3• 6 years ago

Annoying to say the least

llacb47• 6 years ago

The former text of this comment:

    The headline on the article should reflect the fact that Microsoft/Github pulled youtube-dl offline by choosing to respond to a DMCA takedown order that is not procedurally valid. The privatization of law enforcement through DMCA takedown orders does not extend to alleged circumvention tools; it includes only copyrighted material that is allegedly 'pirated.'
    The RIAA is engaging in an abuse of process that Microsoft has no obligation to cooperate with. The fact that Microsoft didn't tell the RIAA to go Disney themselves means that 100% of the blame lies at Microsoft's feet. No exceptions.

    . .

    That said, the youtube-dl maintainers should file a bar association complaint against the RIAA lawyer(s) who wrote the DMCA takedown. Filing invalid motions is an ethical violation that should result in sanctions.

AndrewBissell• 6 years ago

A large number of alternative news outlets have been catching YouTube bans under the cover of the QAnon crackdown. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the main archiving tool one could use to migrate off of YouTube is being squelched at the same time.

grezql• 6 years ago

Microsoft has to reverse this takedown. Even though it is called "youtube-dl", it also is for downloading videoes on hundres of other video platforms! Many, as stated in this article, use it for research purposes and investigative journalism.

Why do companies like MS, Google, Amazon etc acquire smaller companies if they cant protect the values these small companies stand for and made them attractive in first place.

filmgirlcw9• 6 years ago

When my full-time job was as a journalist, I used youtube-dl all the time as a way to have archives of content that was either in danger of being taken down (related to a mass-shooting or other global event) or that the creator would take down after it received attention. In fact, I used to have instructions for how to install it in the various wikis/docs for other team members (this was easier once the Python GUI frontend became available, but I still created step-by-step instructions for specific settings).

I produce/host a few weekly news shows focused on developer-centric news and updates and have a keyboard macro setup to run youtube-dl against a text file with URLs not to download the videos, but the thumbnails for videos, so I can use them in the on-screen graphics when talking about a specific story. Before I scripted that solution, the process of having to manually extract the thumbnail for any video I was highlighting was a major PITA.

Also, being frank, youtube-dl is significantly better than the official YouTube API for downloading past content from channels I own/manage. It’s faster and a lot more scriptable. I have automated scripts set to watch specific playlists or channels and auto-download stuff for archival purposes — and again, this is content that I either own or that exists on a channel where I’m one of the admins.

It’s unfortunate that the test suite had links to commercial music — we’ve seen in past RIAA litigation that that is enough to go against the argument that this isn’t encouraging download of copyrighted content.

But as a tool, for not just YouTube but so many other services, it’s invaluable even in non-data hoarding/grey area or straight up infringement scenarios.

To be clear, I’ve often used youtube-dl to infringe (as have the vast majority of its users), but that’s my choice/fault. The tool itself has plenty of non-infringing uses. I just wish they’d either linked the test file to another area or used other examples.

sabujp• 6 years ago

Where will new development take place? What's the russian / chinese equivalent of github?

thaumasiotes4• 6 years ago

The Chinese software startup I worked for used self-hosted gitlab.

swiley• 6 years ago

It's also github. The other year China tried blocking github via the GFW and had to allow it because so many developers there needed it.

Either way you can host git yourself (or just use git format-patch) there's not a single thing github really does for you other than integrate a bunch of self-hostable tools behind a flashy (and increasingly less usable) web GUI.

JabavuAdams• 6 years ago

FYI I use Open Broadcaster Software https://obsproject.com/ . I record my own screen while playing the YouTube content.

m-p-33• 6 years ago

Not ideal, as you're recording a lossy format and re-encoding it through a lossy codec and you're also stuck with recording in realtime.

contravariant2• 6 years ago

Not to mention that the chroma subsampling gets worse and worse this way. Not just because that's an inherent problem but also because youtube is (like most video players) horrendously bad at resampling the chroma.

brokenmachine2• 6 years ago

This is sucks though. You end up wasting space to have a worse quality recording.

incompatible• 6 years ago

YouTube even offers a Creative Commons feature, such as on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUY01kW8p2o: if you scroll to the end of the description it reads: License Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed).

I've never understood why they don't offer a download option for such videos: the likes of youtube-dl is the only way to get a copy, and it's perfectly legal.

Likewise for public domain videos.

jyrkesh• 6 years ago

I don't think it's any more complicated than that it's because they can't roll ads on videos that are downloaded.

youtube-dl et al are niche enough that it doesn't put a real dent in their ad business, but making it more convenient with a Download button might.

thaumasiotes4• 6 years ago

I don't think it's any more complicated than that it's because they can't roll ads on videos that are downloaded.

That's certainly something they can do; they just don't do it.

Compare movies on VHS tapes, which all roll ads before actually playing the movie.

heavyset_go2• 6 years ago

They could certainly bake ads into their videos if they wanted to.

fyfy18• 6 years ago

Make it part of the Premium subscription then (which is ad-free). If people or companies have a legitimate use for downloading videos, paying $10/mo (or however much it is) isn't going to break the bank.

rektide3• 6 years ago

The copy-protection MAFIAA (a joke acronym, Movie and Film Industry Association of America, a hypothetical super-beast merger of the vicious & loathed RIAA and the MPAA) spent a while going after BitTorrent itself too, in a similar manner, as a potential tool for piracy.

Thankfully plenty of people were also using BitTorrent for things like distributing Linux distributions & creative commons material.

That, again, may perhaps save the day.

prox• 6 years ago

Google has zero interest in free downloads. They are in bed with the music industry which makes them some ad dollars and their client thinking is sub-zero. Thats because the public is not the client, the advertisers are. If I worked at Google I would be scratching myself behind the ears and take a long big look at what the company has become.

bigiain2• 6 years ago

I suspect there's at least a small dose of ultra privilege of googlers involved too.

The same way governments and bureaucrats fuck up things like Covid responses, because they can't even imagine people not having 9-5 office jobs which are totally suited to WFH, and then blithely implement disease protection schemes failing to account for low income and precariously employed people, many of whom are working 3 jobs to pay the bills (including stuff like cleaning jobs where they work at 4 or 5 different old people's homes) - and then wonder why outbreaks spread so fast.

Googlers have probably forgotten the olden times, when they didn't have Gigabit connections to their pockets and lounge rooms, and don't even remember last time they wanted to "save a copy into a hard drive locally, like a hilarious boomer!"...

filmgirlcw9• 6 years ago

I left a comment about my own non-infringing use cases of the tool earlier — and I think it’s important that the non-infringing use cases get mentioned.

Having said that, can we please stop pretending like any of us weren’t using this to infringe copyright? Most of us weren’t distributing anything, but I think most of us were aware this was at the very least a grey area, if not outright infringement.

I’m a huge fan and user of youtube-dl and think this action from the RIAA is ridiculous (though not surprising — I’m a little surprised it took this long) and that the law over this stuff is absolutely bonkers — but the commentary and false pretenses about not just how we use the tool but the purpose for why the tool was built is incredibly disingenuous.

It was built and designed to download content that the creators or sites that host the content either didn’t want people to download or outright didn’t allow. The program has support for username/passwords for TV Everywhere SSO’s for premium services. There are ways to tunnel in via a proxy to avoid region block downloads. Again, I’m a huge fan, and I’m someone who absolutely used these features, but let’s not pretend the purpose wasn’t exactly what it is.

That doesn’t make the RIAA’s actions any better or anything — but I really dislike pretending like we weren’t all using the program for the exact purposes the complaint laid out, or that they use case wasn’t the primary reason this tool existed.

wizzwizz4• 6 years ago

I wasn't, and it's not. I genuinely think you're in the minority here (which is unusual, on the 'net, where piracy's concerned).

reggieband• 6 years ago

To add to this (which I 100% agree with) is the chorus of voices suggesting that their usage was OK because they weren't downloading RIAA content.

Just because someone isn't an RIAA member doesn't mean they don't have copyright over the content they upload to YouTube. There are some YouTube creators that would be totally fine with you downloading their content but you can't assume every creator is the same. Just because a user filmed, edited and uploaded some video from their own house doesn't mean they have any less rights than music or video from major labels or Hollywood studios.

labawi2• 6 years ago

Yes but a tool is not illegal just because it can sometimes be used illegally. If some are OK with it and some are not, then it suggests it has legitimate purpose (though you need to go a lot deeper).

Note, I'm not arguing copying small-label stuff is OK, I'm rather more OK with copying RIAA stuff.

AFAICT, if a DRM prohibits fair use, breaking it is legal. In some jurisdictions. Or at least it should be. That should be enough of a reason for youtube-dl to exist.

megous2• 6 years ago

In my country it's not illegal to download copyrighted movies/music. It's just illegal to share them.

So how was I infringing copyright by downloading something from a public website where copyright holder left the content publicly accessible to anyone?

I'll give you that it may or may not be against ToS of the distribution service, but that's all. But it's not a distribution service causing the ruckus around youtube-dl, but the copyright holder, so that's kinda beside the point.

renewiltord3• 6 years ago

What even is the relevance of this? So host a youtube-dl repo and reject DMCA requests then. Github, as it so happens, is American so it has to listen to America.

chetty33• 6 years ago

Thank you so much for the thread here! I would like to share the service on https://streamingsites.com where you will find many good paid and free streaming sites and apps with cool movies to watch. It was really helpful to me, I have to say. I am sure that you will like it a lot too, good luck with it!

OzzyB• 6 years ago

Which country would that be for the curious?

labawi2• 6 years ago

AFAICT I have not used youtube-dl to view videos that I couldn't watch on the site (except perhaps incidentally) - but I don't like executing random code on my computer and youtube web is in my view actively user-hostile and last I tried it had serious performance problems.

I had a feeling I was using youtube-dl to avoid ads (not blocks), but after some retrospective, I don't think I would have seen ads on most videos I watched from youtube and I think most were freely available videos, often embedded on author's pages - except people have an understandable habit of hosting them on youtube.

To conclude, I would disagree that we are all using youtube-dl as complained.

blazespin2• 6 years ago

I don't think this necessarily infringing copyright. There were court cases around timeshifting / tivo that OKd this.

https://www.playon.tv/blog/playon-legal

As long as you don't rebroadcast copyrighted material, you should be fine.

donmcronald• 6 years ago

The only thing I use it for is via Tartube to download videos from my young nephew's channel. He's enthusiastic about making YouTube videos, but doesn't understand the nuance of copyright law or the ToS.

For example, the first thing he did after I helped him set up OBS was to fire up a game + Spotify to make a live stream. I had to explain to him why he's not allowed to stream music like that. He doesn't do it now, but there's still a decent chance his channel that gets 5 views per video will get struck or banned for a similar misunderstanding in the future.

He doesn't know much (under 10) beyond using the Windows Game Bar or OBS to upload something and doesn't have a bunch of spare storage, so he doesn't keep copies of videos anyway. I download them so if he gets banned I have an archive and can help him set up a new channel on another platform.

I know it'll be easy for someone to say "do X, Y, and Z" then, but the reality is that it doesn't take much for it to become "not fun" for younger kids and the opportunity to encourage them to learn valuable skills like video editing, etc. are lost when they lose interest.

kortilla2• 6 years ago

but I really dislike pretending like we weren’t all using the program for the exact purposes the complaint laid out

Speak for yourself. I used it to pull down youtube videos to watch on a 14 hour plane ride over the pacific.

GoblinSlayer5• 6 years ago

Proxy support is a standard feature of all browsers. It's a necessity because in some network configurations you don't have direct access to internet, but only through a proxy.

Talanes• 6 years ago

If I'm seeking out to infringe upon a copyrighted video, Youtube-DL isn't even in the top 5 of things I would think to try.

typenil• 6 years ago

The RIAA has shown itself time and time again to be completely unethical.

m-p-33• 6 years ago

It's a racket claiming to act on behalf of the music industry.

It's the RIAA: Racketeer Industry Association of America.

azinman2• 6 years ago

Sounds like YouTube should have a download button for journalists then.

hiisukun2• 6 years ago

I have friends in law enforcement who use youtube-dl to save copies of videos involving crimes or criminal allegations, from quite a few different social media and video sites.

Speaking with them, it seems the associated metadata (json/xml?) and output log contain valuable information to go along with the video from an evidentiary perspective. Also the fact that youtube-dl has many test cases in the code goes towards demonstrating its reliability as an instrument for collecting evidence.

Certainly seems a better approach than installing a 'DownloadVideosEzy' extension for chrome or similar.

paulryanrogers• 6 years ago

Doesn't law enforcement have a means to subpoena Google for such evidence?

kgog• 6 years ago

Which way do you think takes less time and effort?

neuronflux• 6 years ago

Assuming the content is public, why would they need a subpoena?

neodymiumphish• 6 years ago

The process for a subpoena takes forever and isn't guaranteed.

If I have a subject who has relevant video on a service like YouTube, and I decide to go the subpoena route, here's the process:

- Find the exact video, document the URL, Content creator's account name, and video upload date.

- Submit a preservation letter to Google to ensure the video will still be accessible when the subpoena is auctioned.

- go to my prosecutor/legal team to determine what jurisdiction the subpoena has to go through. It could be the county I'm in, the county the subject lives in, the county the video was uploaded in (unlikely), or the county where Google hosts the video.

- draft the subpoena and get it reviewed by whichever judge/magistrate applies.

- wait who knows how long for the subpoena response, hopefully it comes back with the real video and important content.

- face defense arguments in court that my subpoena was improperly obtained/submitted

hiisukun2• 6 years ago

A few points you might want to consider:

* youtube-dl is not just for Youtube (ie. google). It supports heaps of sites, and youtube is probably less likely to have the sort of content I'm referring to than twitter, pornhub, liveleak, who knows.

* I am in Australia, so for a subpoena (or similar) my friends would need to issue an MLAT request, which would indeed take a very long time. In fact, this often does happen, but in the meantime a formal preservation request (to the service provider) and a local copy (via something like youtube-dl) are important steps.

* Many investigations don't go to court, for a litany of reasons (that's a pun I guess). In such cases, a subpoena isn't in context: law enforcement have to investigate what has happened, to figure out if it needs to go to court.

* Some investigations are important but do not meet the 'serious crime' threshold for forcing companies or parties to provide information. If you can imagine being the victim of a minor crime, that someone filmed and put on twitter, I'm sure you can imagine the local police may want a copy of the video before the tweet gets deleted - but also know that there will never be an international cooperative justice process. It's just a local issue.

* Publically posted video is very common and often important, and it is not surprising that the police need a tool to download it. There are so many sites and web browser technologies, and the cops are not efficient spending their time coding youtube-dl equivalents.

I feel quite strongly about youtube-dl being taken down for copyright infringement by the RIAA, but have tried to answer in an informative way. Sorry if it comes across harsh - no ill will intended :)

dredmorbius5• 6 years ago

Law enforcement already has an anti-circ exemption under 17 USC 1201(e), though a finding against youtube-dl would limit it's (or similar tools') availability and/or functionality.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

nneonneo• 6 years ago

Nit: I presume you mean 17 USC 1201 (e) " Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government Activities."

AnthonyMouse4• 6 years ago

Honest question: How is Section 1201 anything other than incoherent?

Suppose there is some legitimate non-infringing use of some material. Interoperability, law enforcement use, fair use, accessing public domain material which is distributed using the same technological measures, whatever.

You create and distribute a piece of software to interface with the material for those purposes.

It's the same piece of software as one designed for any other purposes, because the software has no knowledge of your intent and your intent has no technical effect on its operation.

If that is allowed, doesn't that make 1201 a dead letter? If you make the tool available for non-infringing uses, the tool is available.

But if that isn't allowed, doesn't that make 1201 a contemptible offense against all of those important interests? And possibly unconstitutional as a result?

bigiain2• 6 years ago

Why was my first though here "I bet Palantir have their own fork of youtube-dl which they rent out to cops in a SaaS thing for the low low price of $ASTRONOMICAL-SUM-COMPARED-TO-ALL-THE-DONATIONS-THE-PROJECT-HAS-EVER-RECIEVED ???:

dang• 6 years ago

"Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

(I understand the environment variable convention but if you think about the reason for the above rule, it's clear what needs to take precedence.)

tracker18• 6 years ago

It seems the referenced URLs in question in the source are part of unit testing.

Aside: Wonder how gitlab handles DMCA requests.

filmgirlcw9• 6 years ago

It looks pretty consistent with GitHub

https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/dmca/

For a self-hosted instance, obviously it would be different. In that case, I assume the notice would go to the webhost.

MKinley• 6 years ago

I am not in law enforcement myself, but do some online investigations, and like many others in my field we use YouTube-dl to save a copy of video evidence relevant to a case we are working on. It can be instrumental for archiving the evidence if it is ever removed or taken down, can also be used to grab extra info (CC text log is one example) and then manually searched for specific strings. This tool has made ma y investigations pay off in ways they never could have otherwise.

beagle34• 6 years ago

How is this significantly different than placing a video camera in front of a screen?

Yt-dL is surely nicer and more convenient, but from an evidence standpoint, a one time $500 (to go wild) setup should have you covered, no?

(Mourning the loss of ytdl myself but trying to be realistic)

b0tzzzzzzman• 6 years ago

Well the RIAA will most likely create the opposite outcome by removing YTDL. Now boat loads of people who did not know about this tool will find it. Am I mistaken in thinking this source code only existed on one website .. Now owned by m$ ?

Imagine if source code was posted on some type of blockchain like ETH2.. Or a decentralized file sharing service, like IPFS. I wonder if websites or self hosted interpreters using some kind of services like those would make serving a take down request nearly impossible.

Well for now we can pay m$ to host code in ways people rely on for the long term. Until, they don't and the codes all taken down in something analogous to modern book burning.

whywhywhywhy• 6 years ago

Where is the solution? We all know the problems by now.

atdt• 6 years ago

I run a simple service that syncs a private YouTube playlist and publishes it as an audio-only podcast feed. When I come across talks that I find interesting, I save them to the playlist, so I can listen to them while walking, exercising, etc., because I find it much easier to absorb new information if I can move around. This has been a huge boon to me personally, and I'm very worried about losing it.

movedx3• 6 years ago

You won't lose it. The tool is open source so either you or someone else can (and will) maintain a fork. You can't stop these things.

chris_wot• 6 years ago

All the RIAA have done is guaranteed that the tool will go underground.

benlumen2• 6 years ago

Sorry for being behind on this discussion, but how can there possibly be a legal basis for taking down open-source software on the basis that it might be used for infringing someone's copyright?

Can they takedown my web browser and operating system too? These are general purpose tools.

It's sad that the conversation is all about justifying its use - I think the takedown is absolutely unjustified.

GitHub should have let it go to court.

deelowe• 6 years ago

The continuous integration environment downloaded a few seconds of copyrighted content bc those videos have obfuscation they needed to test. The RIAA claims that this is a violation. Youtube dl claims it's fair use.

benlumen2• 6 years ago

Right, that makes far more sense. I should have known I was missing something as it's ridiculous on the face of it. Thanks!

Nextgrid• 6 years ago

The DMCA request was not legal, but it isn't GitHub's job to determine that. GitHub is following the law here, just like they would follow the law and reinstate the repository as soon as the owner files a counter-claim.

this_machine• 6 years ago

I use youtube-dl to improve YouTube video playback on older Chromecasts[1].

[1] https://alexdelorenzo.dev/linux/2020/03/14/pipes

crusty• 6 years ago

I am super curious, if this software is open source and the most damning aspect of this case is likely to come down to non-software specific factors like the inclusion of copywrited material (from big name artists) in the unit tests and README and such, what would be the result is someone with the repo just scrubbed the README, refactorfed the unit tests to rid them of any tests on copywrited material, changed the name to something generic like webvid-archiver or some such and rereleased it?

hiq• 6 years ago

Stay tuned: https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc

nullc5• 6 years ago

I use youtube-dl to archive my recordings of my own performances which have been put online by third parties (and which no one but me has any rights to!).

I use youtube-dl to view videos on other sites (such as vimeo) that don't display in my browser (due to compatibility or privacy settings), usually product support stuff.

I use youtube-dl to collect evidence about cryptocurency scammers, which often gets removed from youtube by the time the scam starts collecting. By collecting it when its online it makes it possible to hand over to lawyers so they know what to go subponea. At least once a video I saved probably personally saved me from a frivolous lawsuit (attorney fired his lying client after sending me a threat letter which I responded to with an archived video).

I sometimes use youtube-dl to buffer longer pieces which I'm watching which might suffer from infuriating connection interruptions.

I don't use youtube-dl to save copyrighted music (except incidentally), among other reasons: the audio on youtube is often pretty low quality.

phendrenad2• 6 years ago

Whatever happens with the youtube-dl case, it's a good reminder to take perception seriously.

pabs3• 6 years ago

Software Freedom Conservancy are asking Microsoft to resign from the RIAA over the youtube-dl takedown demand:

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/oct/26/microsoft-github-...

20after4• 6 years ago

That Microsoft is a member of the RIAA is a big problem. One more reason to abandon GitHub.

movedx3• 6 years ago

GitHub is "OK". It's only popular because it was first to market(?)

I find GitLab far superior in every regard: its UI, CI stack, Auto DevOps, K8s integrations, on-prem/self-hosting option, support options, pricing structure, customer service, communications and open nature, frequent updates with great release notes, and more.

seventhtiger• 6 years ago

Did Microsoft make a decision here? I thought it was DMCA takedown which legally requires immediate removal.

boomboomsubban3• 6 years ago

DMCA takedowns are about removing violations of someone's copyright, like posting a Beatles song on YouTube. Though the request was made to look like a takedown request, it's hard to see how they could make the claim the software itself was a copyright violation.

dspillett• 6 years ago

The issue is not that MS obeyed the takedown as they are required to do. The issue the SFC are discussing is that MS are part of the group that issued the takedown request in the first place.

MS has two hats in the game here: one as a member of the RIAA who have issues a DMCA take-down request, and on as the owner of GitHub which has acted upon that order.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 6 years ago

I never use youtube-dl because it is almost always overkill and it is always breaking.

I write my own downloaders. The one I use for YouTube is currently less than half a page of shell script. I never download VEVO or other videos that have enciphered signatures (most videos I encounter on web pages don't), so there is no need for Python or any other slow scripting language and fiddling around with Google's Javascript player. Funnily enough, my scripts hardly ever break. When they do break because of some YouTube change (only once so far), I can fix them in a fraction of the time it takes for the yt-dl project to respond to user complaints and make necessary fixes.

I doubt the press nor anyone else really needs yt-dl if all they are doing is downloading unprotected videos.

Even if someone wants to download VEVO or other protected ones, they don't need youtube-dl to do it. It is trivial to get the download URL for these videos with any "modern" browser. For example, in Chrome, open Developer Tools Network tab, type "videoplayback" in the search box, copy one of the URLs (alt-click) and remove the &range= parameter from the URL.

I wonder if the RIAA will ever go after persons trying to make money by offering anti-circumvention services, e.g.,

http://api.gitnol.com/

I find all those websites trying to sell so-called "video downloaders" very annoying.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 6 years ago

s/anti-//

lxe• 6 years ago

I keep thinking about this takedown... the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube. From the complaint:

The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, and (ii) reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use.

(i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case?

(ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization.

I feel like this is a YouTube ToS violation, not a DMCA-strike-worthy copyright violation.

ttt02• 6 years ago

the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube.

The README file doesn't encourage any downloads of any copyrighted works. All examples included in the README point to their own example video. The only thing that comes close to this is that they say that they will not support any services that are violating copyrights. The copyrighted content is used in test cases, that are not meant for users to see.

(i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case?

What's being "circumvented" is the encrypted URL to the content. But it's not really circumvented, YouTube decrypts it with javascript. All youtube-dl does is that it interprets the javascript that's on their website, just like a web browser does.

(ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization.

Correct. Not sure what "reproduce" means in legal speak, but youtube-dl doesn't even have any functionality to distribute anything.

ogou• 6 years ago

I use youtube-dl to make art videos that I re-upload. It is indispensable for mashups, especially political.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFyy7Csjpl8/?igshid=s29gkfosrt2q

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBV9SKQZzAWuIXspogOq3...

JAlexoid3• 6 years ago

I wondered when we are going to see the day, when RIAA/MPAA are going to support terrorists... albeit indirectly.

I guess it's time to do sudo apt install youtube-dl

jancsika• 6 years ago

I have friends in law enforcement who use youtube-dl to save copies of videos involving crimes or criminal allegations, from quite a few different social media and video sites.

I'm so sick of hearing this "investigations want to be free" nonsense from law enforcement. Just because they want to pirate their investigations without paying they think it's ok for content creators to go hungry?

Get a job hippies.

TedShiller• 6 years ago

Banning youtube-dl won’t accomplish much.

I can simply record my screen with audio (for example using QuickTime Player) and save that as a video. I do that as a last resort if video download software doesn’t work. This method can never be stopped. If I can see it and hear it, then I can record it, with close to perfect quality. And it will get even easier with more user friendly tools.

Sorry, technology wins.

NanoCoaster• 6 years ago

Isn't there already DRM that works by encrypting the video stream and only decrypting / decoding the video stream on the TV? Or at least, in some sort of closed-off execution context?

I'm thinking of Widevine level 1 DRM, for example. If I remember correctly, it mandates that all of the decryption has to happen in a "Trusted Execution Environment", which seems to mean a hardware enclave. I think this effectively locks the user out of the whole decryption phase, which means that you don't get to record your screen.

I might be wrong about this, though. Might have to do a little research.

(Funnily enough, just looking for information right now turns up this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21307308 HN post, which does contain some interesting information)

roboyoshi• 6 years ago

Yes that is indeed a problem. But it's more prominent in the streaming platforms netflix et al. The encrypted widevine stream can still be captured though and AFAIK if any of the hardware leaks the decryption keys it's easily recovered. YouTube will hopefully never implement a DRM solution - it would lock out a lot of older clients that simply do not support it..But in any case you can still record stuff with your phone by simply recording with the camera if you must.

pietrovismara• 6 years ago

Yes DRM on video streams exists already. Try to stream netflix on twitch. Viewers will only see a black screen.

known• 6 years ago

youtube.com should have an option to download videos as torrents

chrisallick• 6 years ago

Would this have happened if they hadn't sold to Microsoft?

8bitsrule• 6 years ago

There are certainly legitimate uses for tools like y-dl. Those using online services for marketing purposes -which include copyrighted material- must be required to reach an agreement with those services to flag the status of those materials in a way that's transparent to software.

If I stream a file for an hour, I tie up a bunch of network resources for an hour. If I can legitimately DL that in 2 minutes, I'm using less net resources for a shorter time. Why in the hell should that be denied because some material is not in the public domain? Completely illogical result.

I watch a lot of long-playing material (I think is non-copyright but WTF do I know?) that I DL to timeshift and watch offline in chunks as time allows. Is that music concert from Poland that's up on Youtube copyrighted? That amateur history/science/education channel that asks for Patreon help? Screw RIAA (again)

allsmedhish• 6 years ago

why don't they block screen capturing softwares ? its simply possible to capture any kind of copyrighted media online? for instance one can capture screen with ms windows screen capture feature. therefore they must ban windows!

blazespin2• 6 years ago

just use windows-g

pcf• 6 years ago

I actually use JDownloader instead to download YouTube videos and playlists.

And I use youtube-dl to download content from other sites, like nrk.no, svt.se and bbc.co.uk.

ochronus2• 6 years ago

Exactly the kind of report which should be part of youtube-dl's front material!

ojosilva• 6 years ago

I'm concerned that the "internet of videos" is not being properly archived, like the hypertext one is. I use ytdl primarily to save valuable homemade videos that I'm afraid could disappear if that person, or Google, were to delete or block the account. I'd hope this could be a coordinated effort by libraries and institutions interested in preserving this invaluable and unprecedented corpus of daily life, culture, spoken word, music etc. that could be studied for generations to come.

And I couldn't care less about VEVO and other copyrighted material, which, I wish, could find home in a completely different platform for all I care.

TonyTrapp• 6 years ago

archive.org archives YouTube videos, too! They might not have everything but I have used it more than once to salvage an old video for which I used to still have a link but it was removed by the uploader...

ochronus2• 6 years ago

Also, a clone in golang: https://github.com/kkdai/youtube

bassie2• 6 years ago

I used youtube-dl for my thesis, analysing Twitch streams and capturing hate speech. Downloading complete playlists with youtube-dl was the only reliable solution. Science, journalism and law enforcement will miss this great tool.

jijji• 6 years ago

banning open source software is like the streisand effect, its probably impossible but a new name will popup tomorro even if it was banned... its funny there is even a law to ban attempt to ban software, which is essentially poetry or speech. any challenge to the supreme court would likely fail on those grounds.

johnisgood• 6 years ago

Do any of you know where youtube-dl developers are continuing?

gitaarik• 6 years ago

I'm traveling a lot. I usually download videos on Wi-Fi so I can watch them later when I don't have Wi-Fi. Why does youtube-dl get into trouble and not YouTube itself?

How journalists use youtube-dl

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