As I said, it was a suggestion to remove that attack surface. If you come up with reasons why it is impossible to comply legally, then don't cry when the legal system f*s you up.
Legality is not an option. It is a necessity, by definition.
Legality is not an option. It is a necessity, by definition.
One is that people often mix political and legal matters in colloquial discussions of such topics. I frequently catch myself doing it too.
It is clearly not in the interest of most people for functionality that youtube-dl offers to be illegal. In fact, most of the time it isn't really illegal, in a de facto sense, since it is never acted upon and prosecuted.
However, sometimes a shady organization such as the RIAA acts upon this legal grey area and tries to push the needle in its own direction. When people then say "There is actually nothing wrong with this, this is definitely not illegal.", they are actually making a political statement without realizing. They are really saying: this shouldn't be illegal because it makes no sense that it is so. Since people actually hold all the power, this act makes this the reality in a way, but in order for this to completely materialize, the will of the people must first be focused so that it is reified into law.
The other problem is that the world is not the US and there are many jurisdictions where circumventing copyright protections and/or downloading a media file for personal use are not problematic at all. This fact also often seeps into the discussion, but sometimes only implicitly, so people often talk past each other.
And all of the required measurements in order to apply fair use are almost impossible to prove, therefore it is an unlikely case to win in court.
I agree with the political sentiment in this discussion, and I have a biased opinion, too - but when talking about pushing the needle in a specific direction the maintainers of youtubedl did a bad job at doing so.
I mean, they have one of the most powerful industries siding against them, with nearly unlimited funding, so it is obvious that this was bound to happen and they should have been more careful.
Especially when they, as a project, cannot afford lawyers to fight potential battles in court.
That's why I described it as an unnecessary attack surface, because that's what it is.
Don't give them reasons to push the needle.
That's just a reason to not pay them anything ever even you find it desirable, they are obviously incapable to handle the money, powerful and incompetent is just too malicious.
The music industry through RIAA are aggressive and may be punching above their weight class in litigation and lobbying, but remember that they are not really that large in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not in the class of juggernauts like oil, medicine etc.
https://www.riaa.com/reportcat/sales-revenue/ says the US music industry had $11.1 billion in revenue for 2019, a fraction of many large tech companies.
There are countries where fair use is always permitted unless a court decision prohibits it in that single case.
It is extremely important to recognize in all this that as a country formed during the enlightenment, the founders of the US understood the importance information sharing holds for a free society. Copyright is intended to protect against wonton plagiarism and illegal redistribution. Fair use provisions exist to prevent abuse of this system and allow for legal redistribution and derivative works. These concepts. Patents and copyrights are at their core, systems designed to encourage distribution, not restrict it. Groups like the RIAA, Disney, the MPAA, and others are chipping away at this.
Fair use isn't some magic pixie dust that lets you do whatever you want with someone else's copyrighted material.
Fair use is a defense you can raise in court, _after_ you have been sued. It is not a presumptive right.
The U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally characterized fair use as an affirmative defense, but in .. (2015) .. U.S. Court of Appeals .. concluded that fair use was not merely a defense .. but was an expressly authorized right, and an exception to the exclusive rights granted to the author of a creative work by copyright law.
Fair use is still a defense to copyright violations, not a right. The 9th Circuit did not hold that fair use was a right in that case (the dancing baby case), only that a copyright holder must consider whether the alleged violation was potentially fair use before filing a lawsuit.
Importantly, the copyright holder is only required to consider whether the violation is fair use. They can still decide that it is not, and proceed with their lawsuit, with the only additional effort required being to state in their claim that they considered fair use and decided that the violation was not fair use.
(Note: while the 9th Circuit precedent is limited to the West Coast of the US, because most tech companies are HQ'd in CA or WA, so as a practical matter this case governs the internet.)
We hold that the statute requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, and that failure to do so raises a triable issue as to whether the copyright holder formed a subjective good faith belief that the use was not authorized by law. [2]
Note that the case was about abuse of DMCA takedowns by copyright holders if not considering fair use. Judge considers fair use as authorized by law, which I would interpret as right, not defense.
Another quote: We agree with the district court and hold that the statute unambiguously contemplates fair use as a use authorized by the law. [2]
Fair use is not just excused by the law, it is wholly authorized by the law [2]
From previously quoted wikipedia article, the paragraph continues:
"Fair use is therefore distinct from affirmative defenses where a use infringes a copyright, but there is no liability due to a valid excuse, e.g., misuse of a copyright." [1]
As for plaintiff considerations, IMO, of course plaintiff is required to argue it's standing, otherwise the case is thrown out, or in this case DMCA is abused. Normally the first bar is to make a coherent argument, then the court gets to decide whether your opinion is right, but that does not lower the defendant's rights to a "defense", even if they are a defense.
[2] Court's decision, hopefully: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=125676491686801...
In order to comply with the strictures of § 512(c)(3)(A)(v), a copyright holder's consideration of fair use need not be searching or intensive. We follow Rossi's guidance that formation of a subjective good faith belief does not require investigation of the allegedly infringing content
As for the quote, Fair use is not just excused by the law, it is wholly authorized by the law
The court is referring to 17 USC 107. Fair use exists in the context of whether something is a violation of copyright, in the same sense that self-defense is authorized by the law but is still a defense to criminal charges. Notably, I didn't call it an affirmative defense because it is not one.
It meets at least 2 of the fair use factors:
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
> Fair use isn't some magic pixie dust that lets you do whatever you want with someone else's copyrighted material.
I didn't claim it was? I said this specific use seems to be a fairly good example. See above factors.
> Fair use is a defense you can raise in court, _after_ you have been sued. It is not a presumptive right.
Not correct. This has been challenged in court and it was found that fair use is a right and not simply a defense.
Can you take a few seconds of a video and show it to a class of students for educational purpose?
Yes, you can
Can you do the same to test a software feature?
Yes, you can
The video is never used or displayed for its commercial value, but only to learn something from it.
It isn't illegal. Copyright protects the video/audio content, not the hyperlink. You would have to establish ytdl induces infringement. Grokster induced infringement. An automated test does not induce infringement.
Many people are pointing to those links as evidence that youtube-dl was intended to be a tool for piracy (under the assumption that downloading videos from YouTube is automatically a DMCA violation, which I'm not fully convinced of).
Publishing the software anonymously on hidden servers (say, Tor onion Services) is not an option. It is a necessity, by definition, because the legal system will f*k you up.