Hacker News Reader

Comment by bragr | Hacker News Reader

Cool project but I wonder if the name will catch flak from the lawyers. Trademarks and all that. At they very least a big "This is not affiliated with Google/Youtube" seems like a wise precaution.

View on HN

They should rename it to Innertube.js (which is the official name of the private API, and as far as I know not trademarked not used in any user-facing resources).

Valve.js would also work, since it allows access to the innertube.

I would advise against this on pure UX grounds due to the existence of Valve the game software company.

They could name it after a type of valve. Stopcheck.js has a nice ring to it and seems kind of apt here.

Presta.js if you want to please the cyclists :D

Bikeshedding.js if we want to continue this conversation

Red.js for the best color coordination

And that would totally not infringe on anything else, right.

It probably wouldn't, because it would be clear that it's got nothing to do with Valve the gaming software company. Trademarks aren't blanket coverage of any possible uses of a name.

Not really, there are rigid categorisation of trademarks (Nice Classification). All software is in Class 42 (https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/nclpub/en/fr/?basi...) so Valve would actually have standing here.

PS: Nice here refers to the French town (compare to Berne Convention, Geneva Convention, Treaty of Paris), not the common meaning in English.

Thanks for pointing that out

Nice

They should immediately rename it so as not to be caught the way YouTube Vanced was. A disclaimer is not a sufficient response to trademark issues.

Or do this:

1. Release it as youtube.js for the name recognition

2. Wait for the certified letter

3. Announce you're renaming your project and get another 24 hours of exposure in the news

This guy is playing the game.

Something like this lives or dies based on how much you annoy the people with lawyers to spare. Doesn't seem like the best plan.

Is there any better plan in an era where the real currency is attention?

I doubt having the project named after youtube is that important for attention.

The attention comes from the stories that happen after they leak the C&D that Alphabet is going to send them for naming it after youtube, then quickly roll out a rename.

Well ... good luck to them I guess. That does not sound like a plan I'd personally enjoy.

they have a disclaimer below

https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js#disclaimer

edit: why am i getting downvoted?

IANAL but I've worked with some of them and I'd guess that isn't sufficient.

My advice to avoid any negative attention from YT/Google (but again IANAL) would be to do two things:

1. Move the "this is an unofficial" disclaimer at the top and bold and/or italic it so it's totally unmissable. I would use the same approach as MarshallOfSound: https://github.com/MarshallOfSound/Google-Play-Music-Desktop...

2. Praise Youtube/Google for having such a great API that empowers and enables their users to get the most out of their subscription. Make sure to point out the (true) benefits that YT gets from having a library like this that is available but they don't have to maintain and promise nothing to.

The disclaimer doesn't really matter, as 1) we wouldn't really expect that many people to read it and 2) it is going to get used in a ton of contexts without that disclaimer... such as in the headline of this Hacker News post. I can't make a company "Apple Computer Backstage" and just put a little note on my website that says "Apple Computer Backstage has no involvement with Apple Computer". This project simply should not have "YouTube" in its name... or, if it absolutely must, it at least needs to be on the other side of some kind of preposition. This insistence upon using other peoples' trademarks in the names of third-party clients based on adversarial interoperability--something that the company often has every reason to "throw the book at" as it is inherently hostile--is what ends up killing the vast majority of these projects over time. This isn't "in for a penny, in for a pound": you need to carefully choose your battles, and flagrantly violating someone's trademarks is going to be your weakest link as it is such low hanging legal fruit and doesn't actually buy you anything.

are you people seriously under the impression that trademarks and such make any difference if a big US corporation wants to fuck you? they can sue you out of existence for violating laws you aren't subject to and/or EULA you've never agreed to

Well it certainly makes it easier for them if you've violated their trademarks.

So why give them an easy out?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com