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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

> The author blatantly violated YouTube's developer policies

Well duh, but those policies only exist because YT is trying to sell those features.

> He's lucky they didn't choose to go down the lawsuit route instead.

Lucky? It's a toss-up whether policies like this are actually enforceable. Most likely all they'd be able to do is block the devs access.

I'll take this as my stance on this matter: a user or program should be allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

This app operates in the same area as ad blockers. Would you argue that uBlock should be taken down because YT wrote a policy demanding that browser software must not 'enable or encourage' the blocking of ads.

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> Lucky? It's a toss-up whether policies like this are actually enforceable. Most likely all they'd be able to do is block the devs access.

He consented to a contract, violated it and caused actual damages (loss of ad revenue, profiting from copyright infringement). Given that he displayed content in violation of the license he was given and made money from it, it could even be a criminal copyright infringement case.

> This app operates in the same area as ad blockers. Would you argue that uBlock should be taken down because YT wrote a policy demanding that browser software must not 'enable or encourage' the blocking of ads.

The uBlock developer doesn't profit and didn't agree to anything.

> I'll take this as my stance on this matter: a user or program should be allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

A stance like this is how you get DRM and ads baked into the video stream. Would you honestly prefer we get into an arms race with YouTube? With DRM the way it is today, I'm not sure that's a battle we can win. Head down this path and we'll have DRM and eye tracking to make _really_ sure we're watching ads before we play a video.

Eye tracking is surely coming regardless

Lets put paranoia aside for a moment, how would this even be feasible? Firstly the browser has to ask permission to use the camera

Hey maybe you're the one in a million that uploads videos direct through webcam so they have that permission anyway - Would people really be ok with sitting there as their webcam light flickers on and off to make sure they're watching adverts? No, they would not. Literally any rival tube site could milk the heck out of that to start pulling people away from YouTube. I'd put money on seeing people vlogging on an adult tube site before we see eyeball tracking on YouTube.

Besides all that you could just unplug your webcam..

Oh, you say that now...

460p unless you meet the hardware and software requirements.

Eye tracking hardware and HDCP 4.0 display, and Windows 10 Securibility Update or MacOS Himalaya.

iOS 10 or Android Sherbet.

On MacOS and iOS that's Safari with iEye permissions granted for YouTube.com, or Chrome on MacOS with GoggleEye enabled.

On Windows, it's Edge with Windows Accessibility and Optics (WAaO), or Chrome with GoggleEye.

Android is Chrome with GoggleEye.

Or the official iOS, Android or Win 10 apps.

Coming 2019. Maybe.

Trips up at the first hurdle - 460p unless you meet the hardware and software requirements

That's a sinking ship. That's the sort of thing that allows Facebook into the world despite MySpace already existing. The sort of thing that allows Google to elbow its way into the #1 spot past the Altavistas, Hotbots and the Jeeves. A new site would come out of nowhere that doesn't have that restriction.

460p is a low bar but these restrictions already exist on current services.

Netflix: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 - 720p on Chrome and Firefox, 1080p on IE and Safari and 4K requires Microsoft Edge, a HDCP2.2 display, a 7th generation Intel Core CPU and Windows updates.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... - You can do 1080p on pretty much any browser but 4K requires a 2nd generation Amazon Fire TV and a HDCP2.2 display.

There is a big difference between restricting to standard definition and high definition though. Many people now have devices that will show the difference between low and high definition, not as many have 4K capabilities.

In the future these values will go up of course, but the difference between restricting HD users to SD and 4K users to HD is quite different.

I wasn't being entirely serious, and apologies if I didn't make that clear.

That said, YouTube have foisted some odious crap (cough random unsubscibe cough Google+ cough Takedown bullshit cough) on creators and subscribers, and yet here we are. Still using YouTube.

The cost of starting and acquiring users for and running a viable YouTube alternative is just too damn high. Unless Amazon do it, it's not happening. Vimeo is an also-ran despite.

People would just upgrade their shit and/or fall in line, or suffer shitty quality.

I'm not sure where the copyright angle is coming from. YT doesn't own the copyright of the videos they host. The best YT could hope for is a ToS violation which is pretty toothless.

> The uBlock developer doesn't profit and didn't agree to anything.

So if the app was Free and FOSS would it be okay? Hopefully so since youtube-dl exists.

> A stance like this is how you get DRM and ads baked into the video stream. Would you honestly prefer we get into an arms race with YouTube?

Right, but in your alternate universe you are legally bound to view the ads and still have all the restrictions of DRM. It's really no different but without any possiblity of circumventing it. Nothing really changes.

> I'm not sure where the copyright angle is coming from. YT doesn't own the copyright of the videos they host. The best YT could hope for is a ToS violation which is pretty toothless.

The developer is displaying copyrighted content. YouTube doesn't own the copyright but it does hold a sublicensable license, which is how the developer could legitimately develop a YouTube app. By violating the developer agreement from YouTube, the developer is breaching any copyright license he may have had. By selling the app commercially, he's also potentially doing so criminally. There's also the CFAA which I forgot at the time.

> So if the app was Free and FOSS would it be okay? Hopefully so since youtube-dl exists.

If the app was free and didn't utilize the API, then yes, it'd be in the same space as youtube-dl.

> It's really no different but without any possiblity of circumventing it. Nothing really changes.

What changes is that as users, we're forced to let invasive technologies into our lives in order to consume content.

> Sublicenses

I'm sure this could be the case but I'm not convinced that their license to the content would be so specific as to require the delivery of the content video/audio together, or must be played in the foreground. Especially since it would require all of the content be relicensed every time they change their policies. And especially since YT themselves can ignore these rules.

Also, we all know that the CFAA is both bullshit and makes basically everything illegal. It has no place in any discussion like this.

> What changes is that as users, we're forced to let invasive technologies into our lives in order to consume content.

Sure, but you've just traded invasive technologies for invasive legal requirements. But your world is basically the case right now and we have DRM and plenty of ad blocking circumvention measures so I'm not convinced it would help.

> I'm sure this could be the case but I'm not convinced that their license to the content would be so specific as to require the delivery of the content video/audio together, or must be played in the foreground.

Oh, it is. Licensing is extremely complex, detailing the medium, format, geography, etc. that you can use it on. A license for video doesn't give you any right to stream audio, and vice-versa.

Content licensing agreements are insane, with a nearly-infinite number of restrictions.

The license a creator gives to YouTube might not require that YouTube delivers audio and video together (it clearly doesn't for YouTube Red) but the license YouTube gives developers definitely does, as pointed out above. Plus, if the video isn't played in the foreground, people don't see ads and creators don't get paid. If there isn't an explicit agreement preventing it, it'd certainly cause conflict if YouTube were found to be allowing it.

> Especially since it would require all of the content be relicensed every time they change their policies.

They've done it in the past, when they introduced YouTube Red for example: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/01/23/youtube-removing...

> Sure, but you've just traded invasive technologies for invasive legal requirements.

Legal requirements are soft and barely enforceable on end users. I'll take those over technological solutions.

Their music licenses absolutely definitely do, unless it's a paid subscription service.

The music labels do not want anyone to be able to build something that might be a free competitor to Spotify. So you may only implement listening to anything you want (as opposed to a random playlist such as Pandora or iTunes Radio) if the service is a paid subscription one, probably with a minimum price point similar to Spotify, or if it cannot play audio in the background with the screen off on mobile.

Licensing is a patchwork, so there's the odd exception missed, or from a VERY old deal, but that's essentially the market if you want to license music.

> YT doesn't own the copyright of the videos they host. The best YT could hope for is a ToS violation which is pretty toothless.

They own distribution rights. I haven't looked at the contract to see what that covers specifically, but typically it would not allow the same degree of rights as original ownership, though it would include more rights than normal end user purchases.

This can have some interesting loopholes which is how my aunt used to have a library of "screener" videos but that's another story...

> in your alternate universe you are legally bound [...]

Yes, you are legally bound to follow legal agreements. The repetitive wording should be a clue as to how iron clad that is, logically at least (even if hard to enforce).

> a user or program should be allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

Regardless of your position on whether the law is right or wrong, this is not true as a matter of law.

Depending on the pertinent applicable law, your ability to transform these bits may be restricted based on IP law or contract law.

Maybe, but we'll never find out if Apple just removes the software and it never goes to litigation...

> Well duh, but those policies only exist because YT is trying to sell those features.

See, I could get behind this argument if I could actually buy those features - but because I'm not in the US, I can't. YouTube Red has looked like the same speck on the horizon as it has for the past 3 years in the UK now, and as far as I know, absolutely nothing has been said about when it'll arrive here.

I would like nothing more than to pay for this functionality, after being given a trial of YouTube Music Key (back before it was called Red) well over 3 years ago at this point, I want reasonably priced access to Red original content, I want background and audio-only play on my phone. Hell, I might even use the download video feature, who knows? Well it's sure as hell not me, because I don't even have access to it.

> a user or program should be allowed to do anything they choose with the bits they receive. They can alter, modify, ignore, strip, or save any part of it.

If you sign a NDA with Coca-Cola, and they share their recipe with you via email, you're allowed to do "anything you choose" with it?

If you sign a partnership contract with Google, and they share their algorithms with you, you're allowed to do "anything you choose" with it?

Where's the line exactly of how far you can violate a contract simply because the property - intellectual and otherwise, can be represented as bits?

Obviously, when you're selling proprietary information. A service should have no right to enforce reinterpretation of the bits received any more than you have a right to enforce how people are to interpret the semantic content of your posts. (And in fact, I could easily go around selling my reinterpretation, and that only becomes a problem once you're arguing damages.)

Yes, financial damages is what happens when you "reinterpret" bits against contractual agreements.

> Well duh, but those policies only exist because YT is trying to sell those features.

That's totally within their rights as a business, is it not?

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