youtube-dl DMCA'd by the RIAA - RIAA and MPAA are on a mass takedown spree

lol calm down, everyone. Here in particular is what the RIAA is pissy about.

We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto. For example, as shown on Exhibit A, the source code expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies:

• Icona Pop – I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) [Official Video], owned by Warner Music Group
• Justin Timberlake – Tunnel Vision (Explicit), owned by Sony Music Group
• Taylor Swift – Shake it Off, owned/exclusively licensed by Universal Music Group

So the devs just have to replace these URLs in the source code with links to public domain videos instead and they're back in compliance at least as far as the RIAA is concerned. (EDIT: Or at least it's the only concrete thing they can offer that might encourage legit violation.) This isn't the end of youtube-dl. I'm willing to bet the project will be back up by the end of the weekend, even if it's not on GitHub.

Though if I were them, I'd use this is a bit of a wake-up call and also rename the project to remove "YouTube" from the title before Google gets pissy about it. It's a bit of a misnomer since it supports a bunch of other video and audio hosting platforms besides YouTube anyway.

EDIT 2: This fork, called youtube-dlc, is still up: https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc

EDIT 3: Looks like @Yotsubaaa cloned it onto git.kiwifarms.net: https://git.kiwifarms.net/Yotsubaaa/youtube-dl - although it lacks the full commit history.
 
Last edited:
Feels like we are back in the early 2010s again when the MPAA and RIAA were pushing SOPA and PIPA.
They did eventually pass it in the form of CISPA I think

Words cannot express how much I fucking hate these cunts. Torrent your music and support artists directly if you can.
I just buy all my stuff off Bandcamp, they don't have DRM so it works for me
 
Is this why "youtube-dl.exe -U" hasn't been working?
Even if the contributors went rogue and started developing their projects in China, the issue is then that the RIAA would just DMCA the repositories. You'd have it pulled from apt / yum / pip / whatever until the only way to get it was from their own website which would have its own hosting problems because of the continued pressure.

The only reason that copyright exists is this clause in the US Constitution.
"[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Clearly, the DMCA is doing the opposite of what the constitution intended, and in a just society this law would be repealed and everyone at the RIAA would be strung up by the neck until dead. We do not live in a just society.

I dont understand what youtube.dl is. Is it just like an alternative to youtube? Why does RIAA care about this exactly?
youtube-dl is a command line program and library that more user-friendly tools (like VLC) can use to download multimedia from YouTube and dozens of other sites.

lol calm down, everyone. Here in particular is what the RIAA is pissy about.
Wrong. The RIAA is using that as an example of the program's purpose. They want it gone.
 
lol calm down, everyone. Here in particular is what the RIAA is pissy about.



So the devs just have to replace these URLs in the source code with links to public domain videos instead and they're back in compliance at least as far as the RIAA is concerned. (EDIT: Or at least it's the only concrete thing they can offer that might encourage legit violation.) This isn't the end of youtube-dl. I'm willing to bet the project will be back up by the end of the weekend, even if it's not on GitHub.
Those URLs were deliberately chosen because they have additional protections which ordinary youtube channels lack, and youtube-dl is explicitly testing its ability to break those protections. They don't have a leg to stand on.

Staying on top of youtube's constant changes is a tedious and thankless enough job as it is, without having to worry about the RIAA. This project's dead.

Youtube will eventually mandate widevine and later intel sgx/arm trustzone DRM, so these tools were running on borrowed time anyway.
 
Last edited:
@Null , you wrote:

"The only reason that copyright exists is this clause in the US Constitution."

In the US, but in the rest of the world it was the Berne convention of 1886 to which the US were not part, the fundamental principle being that copyright was since then automatic and didn't need a registration in every country. The US just joined the Berne Convention in 1989. The little (c) is not necessary actually.

The DMCA is a US law, not a "world" law, a takedown notice is a US thing.

But like somebody else said above, the RIAA still trying to do something sounds like such an old-fashioned thing and it doesn't work, even ed2k is still up and running.

Imho it will turn out to give a Streisand effect, at least one asked "what is youtube-dl?" and oh wait, there are easy ways not to see ads and download YT videos? there are apps for that? what is F-Droid? what is Kazaa? and Napster? oh really apart from torrenting there's a mule thing?

Oh wait I put a video on YT and this "video doesn't work in your country" is circumvented with a VPN? Are you being lax with my copyright, RIAA? Are you allowing my video to be shown illegally? And systematically allowing such things to happen? tsk tsk culpable negligence I guess.

But there you go, RIAA, beautiful. They could have simply written to the developers to say don't include URLs of copyrighted work. Or don't call it youtube-dl. Also nice that you explain there's a rolling cypher thing and not an easy URL to download, people who don't care about YT can now play proof-of-concept. Well done. Could you also complain about which torrent programs are able to avoid detection and IP ranges you don't control?
 
In the US, but in the rest of the world it was the Berne convention of 1886 to which the US were not part, the fundamental principle being that copyright was since then automatic and didn't need a registration in every country. The US just joined the Berne Convention in 1989. The little (c) is not necessary actually.
The US has a very long arm. A default court judgement against youtube-dl and its devs can be used to shut down VPSs in the US, have the project removed from GitHub (US), GitGud (US), GitLab (US), and intimidate foreign entities into compliance in general. This also works against repository managers.

How many of these developers are willing to spit in the face of the United States of America or become foreign entities living in China to write youtube-dl? Very few people.
 
Poasting illegal imagery
01.png
02.png


https://tw.tinf.io/GalacticFurball/status/1319765986791157761 | https://archive.md/dXdvQ

depends on:
curl, imagemagick

Bash:
curl https://archive.is/dXdvQ/c58b55674ef876f8b78d02c30a685561b6376981.png --output 01.png && \
curl https://archive.is/dXdvQ/4591a5caa74058c0ae18d71b5cc40ea41a6ea496.png --output 02.png; \
convert -depth 8 01.png rgb:ytdl01.part; \
convert -depth 8 02.png rgb:ytdl02.part; \
cat ytdl01.part ytdl02.part > youtube-dl2020.09.20.tar.gz; \
rm ytdl01.part ytdl02.part; \
clear; \
print 'sha256 checksum: \n'; \
sha256sum youtube-dl2020.09.20.tar.gz


Bash:
Original file:
67fb9bfa30f5b8f06227c478a8a6ed04af1f97ad4e81dd7e2ce518df3e275391

With 59 extra 0 bytes (from conversion process):
14c9cf8d4ac2b44c0642de09fc3df22cf7f99e553079b8ecc65a54292a85ca82
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
unfortunately it seems that when I upload the images on KF and download them from here again I don't arrive at the same result.
I guess the little download from archive.md, convert, append and checksum script has to do.
It works with the ones I posted in OP, maybe you just got the order of the images the wrong way round
 
Back