<story><title>YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA</title><url>https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Andrew_nenakhov</author><text>Why stop with torrent clients? They should ban all browsers, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted materials!</text></item><item><author>molmalo</author><text>I was thinking the same thing:
The next step following this line of thinking would be trying to ban all torrent clients, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted material.&lt;p&gt;This is crazy.</text></item><item><author>jchw</author><text>Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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&amp;#x2F;or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies:&lt;p&gt;They could, of course, have asked for the code to have been changed. Instead, they attacked the project itself. IANAL, but this seems outrageous the same way DMCA&amp;#x27;ing a Bittorrent client would be. This doesn&amp;#x27;t circumvent DRM like Widevine. I don&amp;#x27;t understand what leg they have to stand on here.&lt;p&gt;This feels like DeCSS all over again.&lt;p&gt;P.S.: They also took down youtube-dlc, even though it&amp;#x27;s not listed.&lt;p&gt;[1]: It turns out I am wrong. It wasn&amp;#x27;t in the readme, but in the &lt;i&gt;test cases&lt;/i&gt;. See extractor&amp;#x2F;youtube.py. To me this seems even more tenuous, but IANAL.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>romwell</author><text>Browsers?&lt;p&gt;We need to ban radios with tape decks and TVs with VCRs! The audio cassette and the VHS are bringing the downfall of the music industry with how easily they &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; be used to create unauthorized copies!&lt;p&gt;Oh wait.</text></comment>
<story><title>YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA</title><url>https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Andrew_nenakhov</author><text>Why stop with torrent clients? They should ban all browsers, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted materials!</text></item><item><author>molmalo</author><text>I was thinking the same thing:
The next step following this line of thinking would be trying to ban all torrent clients, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted material.&lt;p&gt;This is crazy.</text></item><item><author>jchw</author><text>Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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&amp;#x2F;or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies:&lt;p&gt;They could, of course, have asked for the code to have been changed. Instead, they attacked the project itself. IANAL, but this seems outrageous the same way DMCA&amp;#x27;ing a Bittorrent client would be. This doesn&amp;#x27;t circumvent DRM like Widevine. I don&amp;#x27;t understand what leg they have to stand on here.&lt;p&gt;This feels like DeCSS all over again.&lt;p&gt;P.S.: They also took down youtube-dlc, even though it&amp;#x27;s not listed.&lt;p&gt;[1]: It turns out I am wrong. It wasn&amp;#x27;t in the readme, but in the &lt;i&gt;test cases&lt;/i&gt;. See extractor&amp;#x2F;youtube.py. To me this seems even more tenuous, but IANAL.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ferdek</author><text>Well, following their logic behind DMCA compliant, I guess fiddling long enough with developer&amp;#x27;s console on Chrome or Firefox would allow you to download potentially copyrighted material from youtube the same way youtube-dl does.&lt;p&gt;sed s&amp;#x2F;youtube-dl&amp;#x2F;firefox&amp;#x2F;g and voilà, DMCA for Firefox ready to submit...&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s go further! Let&amp;#x27;s DMCA the Linux kernel because it runs Firefox&amp;#x2F;youtube-dl&amp;#x2F;curl&amp;#x2F;wget!</text></comment>