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Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

I vaguely recall an article from a Chrome plugin developer who was approached by Google with a job offer. His plugin, if I recall correctly, separated the audio from the video in a YT video and allowed the user to continue streaming the audio while the screen was locked. He refused the offer, and his app was abruptly and mysteriously pulled from the Chrome app store. A (conviniently) short time later YT announced YouTube Red. I looked for the article but couldn't find it. Anyone else remember this?

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That sounds like a stretch

1. YouTube’s subscription offering was in the works for years before it was announced.

2. The reason that YouTube had to pause music if you closed the app had more to do with the RIAA. Remember the RIAA was pissed that they made pennies from streams compared to the dedicated streaming platforms like Spotify.

If anything it sounds like Google was trying to do that guy a favor - his app would have gotten pulled regardless.

RIAA can be as pissed as they want. Somebody needs to tell them "no" eventually. Copyright is in such an awful state because nobody ever tells them no.

It pauses the music when you stop looking at the app because they can use this to differentiate the paid app from the free one.

Try playing youtube in your mobile browser and note it works as expected.

I don’t get your implication. RIAA licensing is for streaming platforms for audio only radio and music video tv. So what’s about the YouTube relationship?

Sounds like his app bypassed one of the "features" of YouTube Red, and they were giving him a chance to be bought out instead of just shut down. Better PR and a nicer way to go about it, if you're going to play that way. But he declined and so they used their position as owner of the app store to shut him down instead.

I do remember that but I do not remember the exact name of the app. I believe he posted screenshots of the emails between himself and Google as well.

I remembered the same as you, and just had to recall the name. Took a few minutes of googling, but Streamus was the one I remembered at least.

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