If youtube-dl (or any OSS project) continues to use GitHub, I hope they have a backup plan ready at all times. Even if GitHub truly is on the right side, they've proven themselves to be a liability for legitimate projects.
I think the 'What we're changing' section is the real interesting part of this post regarding this. I read this section as a half-apology for not doing enough to stand up for developers in this case (allowing the repository to be taken down to begin with), and a promise to do more in the future to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. We'll have to wait and see if their future actions match this promise.
I think there are few if any major other hosts who would have done this -- although perhaps with the example set here, more will going forward?
Honestly, I don't totally understand how you can get away with being as protective of the person receiving a takedown notice (in this case developer) as github has been, under the DMCA. It is unusual.
Compare for instance to gitlab.com's DMCA workflow. (Which it is amazingly awesome that gitlab has all their policies/workflows like this public and transparent, which github does not, true!). Following this workflow, youtube-dl would still be down, until/unless "there was a valid counter-notice and no response has been received from the plaintiff within 10 days of the counter-notice being forwarded"
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/opera...
So yes, I would say that github has already acted in a way to stand up for developers, in reinstating youtube-dl already, and in changing their policies for the future further. Even in their present actions, they seem to be really pushing at DMCA safe harbor allowances.
I'm guessing youtube-dl might be a really strong case for GitHub if they'd happen to get sued, so it makes a lot of business sense to take a stand on it. The get much needed goodwill from the developer community and get to send a strong message they're not interested in being the messenger for weak DMCA claims.
GitHub/Microsoft management deserve credit for recognizing the long term value (to them) of pushing back hard against frivolous DMCA claims.
This is not a dig -- few companies can afford to take a legal risk that Microsoft can (even on a strong case, most companies couldn't afford the legal bills of standing up to RIAA), and it's GREAT that they are choosing to, setting a standard.
It will in fact be really hard for gitlab to do similar though, they can not afford a lawsuit from the RIAA like MS can. (And the RIAA is really unlikely to sue MS unless they really think they have to, cause they know they're outgunned_.
It’s also open source: https://github.com/github/site-policy/blob/main/Policies/dmc...
Maybe GitHub didn't nail it this time but in my opinion it takes some mental gymnastics to not see this post as a really positive turn from GH.
So... why did the EFF have to step in here? GitHub deserves some credit, but I cannot give them all of the credit. As far as I can tell, this situation was at a stand still for the better part of a month until the EFF got involved.
The fact they restored everything in just a day after receiving it makes that pretty clear. They didn't need to evaluate their options much at all; as soon as they received it, the repo was back. I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that the EFF talked off the record with GitHub beforehand.
I mean, I guess I understand the sentiment here, but really, most projects don't run this risk. Youtube-dl, on the other hand, is used by people to download copyrighted material. It's a natural target, and as a project maintainer/contributor you have to be aware of the legal setting in which your project exists.