Quite funny for someone who three times the number of post in this topic than I do. Where is the hypocrisy? I did not join this discussion in until page 5 post 65, you on the other hand chimed in at post 4. As for me sounding pretty bitter. Over what? I think this thread is off topic, you don't, so what.

For Pete's sake give it a rest! If we can't talk constructively about what has happened, why are we talking at all? If I was a moderator, I'd close this thread.

Someone had mentioned if one doesn't like a discussion to simply ignore it. I agree, but when the same people are saying this doesn't belong here or there it gets rather annoying. I'm not bothered either way, there is nothing sensitive about me or my character. I can take the bitter with the sweet. If Pat ain't complaining who are these other people to do so. If Pat says it don't belong here I can respect that, until then everyone can STFU, including me.

I ran a few tests (my science background REQUIRES empirical evidence) and it appears that download links do not lead to downloads, they lead to prompts to subscribe to the extra download-enabled service. If that prompt code detects that you are a user who is already subscribed, it takes you to the download instead. So no software is subverted by the application, it appears it simply ignores the prompts and scrapes the link and pulls the download. (NOTE: I did not read through the code, there may be better clues in that.) If there is DRM features in the software or in the link, it either fails or you get a DRM protected media file that does you no real good.

Now, does the performer get a portion of that extra subscription money? Does the RIAA member IF ONE IS EVEN INVOLVED? That is unclear. We would need input from Google about that, and that seems unlikely. The only one it clearly impacts is GOOGLE, and they did not initiate the letter!

Is it possible to modify the process so that the application will not download RIAA protected content? I cannot be sure. I am not sure the data is in the page to make detection and filtering easy. Google seems willing and happy to take your money even if you only want NON-RIAA content, so cooperation there is uncertain.

Can we all stop bickering, retain focus and at least agree on the following?

The RIAA cannot issue a takedown on original content that is released under a freeware license (such as the GPL) by the authors. The RIAA is breaking the law (at least in the US) and thus can and should be punished.

Nope.

1. GPL is not a freeware license. GPL is a Free Software license. Freeware generally refers to zero-cost proprietary software which does not provide code.

2. YTDL is not GPL software. Youtube-DL is explicitly Public Domain, released under the terms of the Unlicense.

3. It is not illegal to issue a DMCA takedown of GPL-licensed software, nor of Public Domain software.


The one point that should be agreeable by everyone in the thread (even those mistakenly claiming YTDL is a piracy tool):

• The YTDL source code is already widespread and the RIAA cannot enforce takedown notices on everyone, so it is very unlikely to go away.

The meta discussion! :smh:

Anyhow, here's what I just wrote on that other thread:

well that's the maintainer of the AUR package, not the maintainer of youtube-dl.
Funny, so many people post, nay demand, alternative sources. It takes more than a cloned repo to take up development...

This however:...looks like it's been around for a while?
I could not tickle the github interface into telling me when exactly this wqs forked off from the original youtube-dl, how long it has existed, with the specific "intention of getting features tested by the community merged in the tool faster, since youtube-dl's development seems to be slowing down" (have to admit I had noticed that myself once).
It appears the owner complained about that long before current events, but the AUR package is new.
edit: OK, it appears this was forked sometime in August because of slow development and happens to have a few extra commits compared to the original. I'm not sure I agree with the idea of pushing a fork instead of trying to work together more with yt-dl devs, but atm the point is moot...

Still no news on the official site...

It was forked recently because there were (Are) a lot of unmerged fixes piling up and radio silence from the ytdl development team. It was only after it was advertised in an issue report asking for the the status of the youtube-dl development that the radio silence was broken and all references to the fork immediately censored. Even then the development was slow and most of the fixes were not merged yet before the dmca took everything down.

This is a fun thread because in some ways it
strikes at the heart of some matters regarding FOSS
and Liberty and innovation and balance.

Weird AL: Dont download this song-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY

"Just buy the CD, you beep chastard..."

Very interesting nonetheless.

I've been using youtube-dl on Mint for a long time. I just tried to download a video yesterday and it failed. When this happens I normally run youtube-dl -U, which updates the program. That didn't work because, as has been mentioned, the repository is not available thanks to the DMCA order.

The version available to download is the 20 Sept. version, and I am unable to use it to get anything that I've tried on the site. So, as far as I'm concerned, the program's been disabled.

Just used youtube-dl (also the 2020-09-20 version) a couple of minutes ago to download a video just as a test, and it's still working fine.

Wow. Well, I only tried a few, so perhaps I should get a bigger sample. It has always seemed to me that every few weeks I would go to use the program and it would fail, then I would update, and it would work. So, I concluded that the regular updates were needed to keep up with changes on the site(s). I don't know. A great deal of this is way over my head.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I am (a little) smarter now!

Has anyone done a proof-of-concept on something proprietary?

With all respect, I do NOT think that the FOSS discourse is about the liberty of using someone servers in wrong ways.

Probably in the FOSS ways, will be about someone making an open-source website like Youtube, if there's no one yet.

And Google Youtube have plenty of methods to renders youtube-dl useless and any similar tools too.

Even they will not want to go full retard on DRM, there's always Nagra video/audio encryption widely used by the cable channels since long years, and guess what? Looks like any reasonable modern Chrome/Chromium and Firefox, and even a reasonable modern Android have support for this Nagra thing.

Could be possibile that this YT-DL scandal to be just used as an "excuse" for a future video/audio encryption of Youtube.

After all, Nagra (or other similar things) will permit to greatly fine tune the "pay for video" ways. And let's not forget about the regional lockdowns.