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Youtube DRM Piracy

Host of Youtube-dl Web Site Sued by Major Record Labels (torrentfreak.com) 104

Posted by EditorDavid from the suing-over-software dept.
"As part of their growing battle against popular open source software tool youtube-dl, three major music labels are now suing Uberspace, the company that currently hosts the official youtube-dl homepage," reports TorrentFreak: According to plaintiffs Sony, Universal and Warner, youtube-dl circumvents YouTube's "rolling cipher" technology, something a German court found to be illegal in 2017.... While the RIAA's effort to take down youtube-dl from GitHub grabbed all the headlines, moves had already been underway weeks before that in Germany. Law firm Rasch works with several major music industry players and it was on their behalf that cease-and-desist orders were sent to local hosting service Uberspace. The RIAA complained that the company was hosting the official youtube-dl website although the tool itself was hosted elsewhere.

"The software itself wasn't hosted on our systems anyway so, to be honest, I felt it to be quite ridiculous to involve us in this issue anyway — a lawyer specializing in IT laws should know better," Jonas Pasche from Uberspace said at the time.

In emailed correspondence today Uberspace informed TorrentFreak that, following the cease-and-desist in October 2020, three major music labels are now suing the company in Germany... According to the labels, youtube-dl poses a risk to their business and enables users to download their artists' copyrighted works by circumventing YouTube's technical measures. As a result, Uberspace should not be playing a part in the tool's operations by hosting its website if it does not wish to find itself liable too....

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. "Even if YouTube doesn't provide video download functionality right out of the box, the videos are not provided with copy protection," says former EU MP Julia Reda from the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) to NetzPolitik. "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."
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Host of Youtube-dl Web Site Sued by Major Record Labels More

Host of Youtube-dl Web Site Sued by Major Record Labels

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  • Apparently the claim is not so much the private copy but that circumventing the “rolling cipher”, whatever that is, is apparently illegal. The real issue I wonder is why is this illegal is Youtube apparently cooperates? Surely Youtube can at the very least implement technology so that downloading anything would at least require it's playing time by simply refusing to sen data faster than needed for playback?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Surely Youtube can at the very least implement technology so that downloading anything would at least require it's playing time by simply refusing to sen data faster than needed for playback?

      How do you think video servers ensure a smooth playback experience to users when network quality can have minor changes and interruptions mid-program?

      • They buffer to some degree, but there is no need to buffer as far ahead as they do.

        • Re:Why does Youtube cooperate? (Score:4, Informative)

          by tysonedwards ( 969693 ) on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:28AM (#62176649)
          Except buffering offers legitimate improvements to user experience. For example, audio tracks and subtitles are often embedded into the same file.

          If there is no subtitle present, one can perform live transcription of the audio data to make the contents of the video searchable or accessible to those with hearing loss.

          Those same transcription features also allow for metadata extraction such as speaker identification, letting the viewer enable subtitles for individual speakers or their non-native language.

          That is in addition to enabling functionality like “what did she just say?” Which will look for the start of the last line said before the assistant button activation.

          Further, not all videos are expected to be watched completely. Sometimes you legitimately want to skip ahead, to re-play a previous segment, or to speed up or slow down playback. Enforcing linear, start to finish play in it’s entirety harms user engagement.

        • They buffer to some degree, but there is no need to buffer as far ahead as they do.

          The ever popular "it doesn't apply to me, so it can't apply to anyone else" argument.

          YouTube, obviously, disagrees with you. If they didn't NEED to buffer so far ahead, they wouldn't. Why the hell would they wastefully send packets that they don't think they need to? When your data-rates are measured in terabits per second you don't send out data, that doesn't improve the quality/user-experience of your service, for no reason at all.

          That's not some POS service slapped together by window-lickers. Ever

          • YouTube, obviously, disagrees with you. If they didn't NEED to buffer so far ahead, they wouldn't.

            There was a time when youtube limited buffering and throughput and they stopped doing that. I couldn't tell you the reason they had, but it was clear that for a short time they'd feed you wire speed to get the video started then bitrate*n for as long as the video was playing. At first I thought my ISP was throttling, but I could force a "burst" of packets by seeking so it had to be youtube servers. My thinking is that they realised it was better to have short lived connections that they could dump large buf

        • There is if you have dial-up speeds. You have to buffer the whole video, essentially. So all one has to do is simulate dial-up speeds to "need" that much read-ahead.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          You never know where the client might want to seek to, and it's ideal if you make it as likely as possible that a seek is instantaneous.

        • There is a need. Do you think the public is just going to sit still when their cat video hangs in mid-stream as they drive through a tunnel?

          Welcome to 5G.

    • Most things do take about real-time to download with youtube-dl. Used to be faster more often, now seems it seldom is much faster.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Surely Youtube can at the very least implement technology so that downloading anything would at least require it's playing time by simply refusing to send data faster than needed for playback?

      Some sites do just that, and downloading software throttles itself to avoid tripping that. The amount downloaded per unit time is reduced, but that wouldn't make the labels and such happy because the nature of the downloads is still the same, and can, for example, do a whole lot while you sleep or do anything else other than watch the content. Copyright infringement was quite common even as it would take 3-4x longer to download than the media would playback.

    • I'm still puzzling over how my making a copy of the audio from a music video somehow irreparably harms Youtube or the artists.

      I'm never going to buy the music and I'd just do without it if there was no way to rip the audio out of a video.

      No one is losing any of that precious money because, as I said, I'm never going to buy the music. It's just not that important to me.

      So, really, who is being harmed? No one that I can see.

      • Because you can play it back as often as you want with no revenue generating adverts. Also you might be tempted to buy a small percentage of the music you download for free if it wasn't trivial to make a perfect copy.

        • Because you can play it back as often as you want with no revenue generating adverts.

          I still don't see the problem. It sounds like a "them" problem, not a "me" problem. Now, if they can force me to generate ad revenue for them, then so be it, but I'm not obligated to support their business model.

          Also you might be tempted to buy a small percentage of the music you download for free if it wasn't trivial to make a perfect copy.

          Speaking only for myself, that's unlikely. If I can't copy it, then I won't listen to it or watch it.

  • Get in now. I've been using this tool for years to save live music or circumvent advertising on longer videos. No point downloading shorter videos but having to watch two 15 second ads before watching a 3 minute highlight reel is a real fucker.

  • How does this go, again? (Score:3)

    by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:11AM (#62176625)

    1. Put a video on YouTube, whose computers will provide a copy to anyone who asks
    2. Get mad when people ask for copies
    3. ???
    4. Lawsuit?

    • Re:How does this go, again? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@g m a i l . com> on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:16AM (#62176629) Journal

      Worse. Did you catch the last line of the summary?

      "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."

      Does nobody know how computers actually work? Unless something has changed, I don't think youtube videos are exclusively stored in ram and are never cached.

      This is akin to them saying that I'm not allowed to copy files from one part of my hard drive to another. Sorry, when they land on my disk, they are mine. If you don't want them there, don't offer them on the internet.

      • Re: How does this go, again? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Sunday January 16, 2022 @02:39AM (#62176663)

        I believe the last line in the summary is referring to the legal right to make private copies of copyrighted material in Germany, because devices and storage media has been levied and that money they have paid has been given to the studios.

        They should have sued in a different country.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        In firefox, use the "Web developer tools", select "Network", then choose "Media"

        You can watch the GET requests in real-time.

        Watching a YT video, there are a *LOT* of GETs, for small parcels of the media.

        In short, your video is delivered in small packets, and it's unlikely they ever hit your hard drive. GET a packet, start displaying it, pre-emptively GET the next packet, and so on.

        And "no-cache" directives are a thing.

        So yes, things *have* changed, and YT has managed to avoid having its content cached on yo

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          So yes, things *have* changed, and YT has managed to avoid having its content cached on your computer.

          Not at all. The caching is up to your browser - "No-Cache" is advisory; You can force saving everything to disk or pass your Browser's connections through a Proxy service configured to log and story every item and Ignore No-Cache.

          The chopping up the distribution of media into multiple GET requests is a performance tweak and a technical method of providing flow control and error recovery that HTTPS canno

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Playing Devil's advocate for a moment, the fact that something is "made available" doesn't negate copyright protection. TV stations broadcast their programming to millions of people, but still enjoy copyright protection.

      I think the rules are different in Germany, you are legally allowed to make private copies. In the UK you are technically not allowed to tape TV shows or movies off broadcasts, but it's not enforced and everyone does it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        TV stations broadcast their programming to millions of people, but still enjoy copyright protection.

        Indeed, and youtube-dl is analogous to a VCR. The "Betamax Case" established VCR as fair game (in the US) though unfortunately DMCA did it's best to undo all of that.

        • It is more like BetaMax or is it more like ABC v Aereo [wikipedia.org]. That decision distinguished a firm that re-transmitted a work from betamax and that distinction is rather relevant here.

          I don't much like the precedent, but unless it's reversed the analogy (at least as far as US law) is not gonna fly.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Junta ( 36770 )

            I don't see how it's more like Aereo. Aereo used their equipment to record and let users download from Aereo owned and operated equipment. This is what the supreme court latched onto, that this arrangement was what cable companies did and cable companies were required to have consent for retransmission per a 1992 law.

            youtube-dl is software you can use to download from youtube, it is not a site that re-hosts youtube content or even serves as a proxy between youtube and the user. All the equipment and the in

          • I don't think it's like the Aereo case at all because youtube-dl is a client that requests videos from YouTube and I don't believe there is any rebroadcasting or redistribution going on. However, I guess there could be a gray area if youtube-dl uses some kind of proxy (I'm not sure exactly how it works).

      • the fact that something is "made available" doesn't negate copyright protection

        I didn't see anything that suggested that copyright protection was being negated. Copyright protections are usually concerned with protecting the distribution of copies, and I don't believe that youtube-dl is performing any distribution. As far as I can tell, it is a client that downloads the content from YouTube, in a similar manner to a web browser, but in a way that allows it to be stored to a drive.

        TV stations broadcast th

    • if any, the biggest profit loser is Google, since downloading the video will allow you to replay said video without ads...

      • if any, the biggest profit loser is Google, since downloading the video will allow you to replay said video without ads...

        Downloading videos simply to avoid ads is an inefficient time waster. Install uBlock and watch YT videos free of ads directly in your browser. I never get ads on YouTube - if I did I simply wouldn't be watching videos there.

        I do use youtube-dl and yt-dlp for videos I want to re-watch, especially those that look as though they might become NLA at some point. I also use them to get music that I can't find elsewhere. But most of my video consumption on YT is ad-free in real time.

  • major music labels want to get paid X3 and artists get 0

  • ..over a device Sony manufactured which could be used to save videos for later viewing. It was called Betamax [wikipedia.org]. It's a shame Sony has no sense of irony. It's also a shame the motion picture industry hasn't yet caught up with the RIAA and realized the futility of DRM. It doesn't stop pirates and is an annoyance to your customers.

    • Crap. Should've read TFS a bit more closely. This is the music industry, which dropped DRM years ago from their audio products, whining about how DRM on music videos is trivial to circumvent. You'd think they'd put two and two together here. facepalm.gif

      • Crap. Should've read TFS a bit more closely. This is the music industry, which dropped DRM years ago from their audio products, whining about how DRM on music videos is trivial to circumvent. You'd think they'd put two and two together here. facepalm.gif

        My understanding is that they only dropped DRM after Apple developed enough leverage with iTunes to force them to.

  • Major labels can fuck right off.

  • I didn/t know (Score:3)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday January 16, 2022 @04:44AM (#62176785)

    I didn't know this tool existed
    so where can I get it?

  • The main point of the lawsuit seems to me too be the word"circumvent" and all the implications of cracking security to download the video. But does it really circumvent encryption or only implement it similar to the official YouTube web Client? VLC or libdvdcss actually crack DVD security but here it seems to be utterly an incorrect allegation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Budenny ( 888916 )

      Their problem is that to allow the user to watch or listen it has to be open format. As soon as its open format, it becomes possible to write fairly simple software to enable the user to record it. And once written, it will proliferate.

      For instance, the package is probably in the repositories of all the usual distributions. Who knows where they are hosted, all over the world probably in lots of different jurisdictions. Are they going to sue them all, one at a time?

      There is really no way around this, eith

      • Yes - this is the whole screwdrivers should be illegal argument. Screwdrivers are only a tool and the fact that they can be used to do illegal things is irrelevant to whether they should exist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      But does it really circumvent encryption

      It doesn't circumvent squat. It's a Bad-Faith argument by the RIAA which haven't been adequately contested that they historically managed to get a german judge to sign off on.

      Because the "rolling cipher" is not intended to be DRM in the first place - Youtube's website provides the Javascript code in cleartext used to select the video quality and encode the URL to get the videos, and Yt-DL
      just parses and runs the code Youtube provides [ycombinator.com] to get the URL.

      Youtube'

    • No. (Score:2)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      As usual, they're lying sacks of shit. YT separates the video and audio into separate files. Youtube-dl downloads the two parts and merges them with ffmpeg [ffmpeg.org] and it has a ton of options.

      They're just trying to get free money by lying to judges who don't understand the technology - you know, the same shit they've been doing for many decades.

      • YT separates the video and audio into separate files.

        ...and they do it specifically for the purpose of making it harder to download good quality from them. This separation of files is only present on HD content. Porn sites do this too, in exactly the same way, where its relatively easy to download a low quality version from a single link easily findable in the page source, but all high quality content needs to be remuxed to make the content playable outside of their video app or javascript page.

  • There's a hidden tax on blank CDs to cover the license fee for recording copyrighted music on them. But the music industry still cried about being robbed despite getting paid.

    The music industry is organized crime with a lot of lawyers.

  • Back in the day of tape recorders, we recorded music from radio. The presenter for some reason always interrupted the song for something stupid. Rumors said they did this to ruin the recording and to push people to buy the record. I notice similar strategies in YouTube vids. In the video, the actors speak, sounds are added (door slamming, ...) All you need is a bit of creativity.

  • How can Warner media sue a company that accesses another company's service? I would have suspected they have no standing in this case...

  • sellers of hammers, because these very hammers can be used to smash windows and break into their shops?

    • sellers of hammers, because these very hammers can be used to smash windows and break into their shops?

      I'm only surprised that there isn't a tax imposed for every nail you hit with aforesaid hammer. Like a "usage fee".

  • Google is already throttling youtube-dl downloads, but hasn't completely cut them off. Meanwhile, the code has already been forked in to a bunch of other projects.

    Google could simply not allow these fuckbags to have videos on YT at all, they also have more money than all the RIAA combined, and could definitely fight in court. So, let's go after some hosting company instead, they're easier to intimidate.

  • ... that Sony and the Music Industry in general are engaged in flat-out illegal fraudulent activity in Germany, more or less actively supported by the authorities. The problem being, that politicians making the laws and the judges required to follow them have little clue to absolutely no clue about what the actual problem is and why German Creator Protection laws directly contradict fundamental property rights. The Chancellor Schroeder Government passed the first instance of this sort of law along with the

  • If you try youtube-dl to download a copy of any random video, it works, but if the video is protected by DRM the download will fail, even if logged in. But it plays just fine in YT's player (on Chrome). So, why doesn't the record industry just demand all their files be DRMed on YT? The ball is in their court. Literally.
  • Reaction and response videos are a popular segment of YouTube. In particular, response videos allow people to have a sort of virtual conversation back and forth. Since buffering issues completely ruin reaction and response videos, YouTubers who care about the quality of their videos will download the video they're reacting/responding to first and then play them locally while they record their reaction/response.

    Also, there are many royalty-free videos distributed on YouTube and youtube-dl offers a nice

  • I wish they would fuck off.

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