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Comment by AllegedAlec | Hacker News Reader

Why are youtube to mp3 converters illegal? I mean, it's basically just recoding a signal; I don't see how that could be an illegal action. Might as well sue me for recoding WAV to mp3 so more music fits on my phone.

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Copying, any copying, is breaking copyright, if a work is copyrighted. There are some defenses you have if actually accused of copyright infringement, like fair use, but those are exceptions after you’ve been accused.

Is this absolutely crazy? Yes.

It's so ass-backwards. I mean, in the most technical sense, every ISP, routing point and whatnot upstream from me to youtube is breaking copyright by sending me the packets, since it is technically a copy of the work.

It's ass-backwards (any law that makes 40% or more of the population a potential target of financially-disruptive lawsuits is not a reasonable law), but let's not get hung up on technical aspects of copying. It's obvious that ISP routing copies, and similar types of copying, involve transient copies that are quickly discarded and not consumed by anyone. The case law actually recognizes this difference. Legally, "copying" a work means meaningful copying, not merely copying data from one place in memory to another place in memory where it stays for a while until it's freed or garbage collected and then overwritten.

Note that we are paying for this when buying equipment that can be used to copy!

This at least doesn't apply to German copyright law. There are cases which are actually explicitly allowed like the "Privatkopie" where you copy a copyrighted work for pure private purposes. So it is explicitly legal to borrow a CD from a friend and make a copy of it, unless that CD is copy protected. This copy can of course only be used by you for your private purposes. For this reason, you are also allowed to tape the TV program.

> Copying, any copying, is breaking copyright, if a work is copyrighted

Only in some legal systems. E.g. in some countries you can make a backup copy of a software you bought.

Potentially, every MP3 or video software is infringing and can be sued.

I believe eventually this will happened, and you wont be able to market or even program a non-cloud monitored player.

This will be accompanied by ratcheting up of subscription cost.

> you wont be able to market or even program a non-cloud monitored player.

This dystopian situation was exactly predicted by rms more than 20 years ago [1].

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14015524

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