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no it's not. intent is also taken into account of fair use and the intent of those test cases is to make sure their program gets around a specific counter measures youtube as put into place so people cannot directly download the media and are forced to stream it.

look... i love the project and everything, but philip is just plain in the wrong and doesn't want to admit it.


The statement is relevant regards one of RIAA's three claims; that youtube-dl infringes RIAA member works in executing its test suite.

That averred infringement is a specific claim. Though weak, it's the strongest specific claim RIAA makes.

Hagemeister's comment establishes that minimal copying is performed in the testing itself, contrary to RIAA's claim.

The infringement does not occur in the source code or test suite itself, it occurs inccidental to testing functionality of the software (that is, it is inherently functional, not expressive), the copies made fall within existing limitations to exclusive rights (§112, §117, §512(a) and (b)), and tests (1), (3), and (4) of §107 fair use.

RIAA's standing on anti-circ §1201 is separate from this question, poorly justified, and likely lacks standing.


dude... you just dug your own grave with your statement:

"Hagemeister's comment establishes that minimal copying is performed..."

bottom line... they are still downloading and copying the file, regardless of what for or how much which is exactly what the RIAA is claiming. you can cite whatever it is you want, the fact is that youtube-dl is DEAD wrong in what they are doing.


Fair use copying, in any amount so deemed, "is not an infringement of copyright". The statute lists four tests. Any one of these, or other conditions, may be sufficient.

The third test is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole".

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

Again, Hagemeister establishes that a bare minimum copying is performed, sufficient to verify code function. A fact which would overwhelmingly tend to a fair use finding.


i'm gonna say it again...

you can cite whatever it is you want, the fact of the matter is, that those test cases are going to seal their doom. any lawyer worth their salt can use those as evidence of them writing specific code to target and bypass security protections so they can download copyrighted works.

i can guarantee within the upcoming weeks we will see a lawsuit filed against everyone involved in youtube-dl... and guess what, they are going to lose that case.


Youtube-dl is executing code provided by Google/YouTube, for World Wide Web user agents, as a World Wide Web user agent, and meant to be accessed and run by user agents in order to access YouTube content. That is, youtube-dl's operation is entirely within YouTube's technical design and intent.

From TFA.


and your article means absolutely nothing. the bottom is, we need to wait and see how is thing will play in court which i guarantee is where it will be heading soon.


>test cases are going to seal their doom. any lawyer worth their salt can use those as evidence of them writing specific code to target and bypass security protections so they can download copyrighted works.

Doesn't this apply to all browsers too? A browser has to actually download the copyrighted work to play it back, regardless whether it's "streaming" it or not. Chunks of the file get downloaded and those protections will have to be bypassed to be able to play it back, no?

We know that different media players rely on youtube-dl to be able to play back videos from YouTube. Are they not allowed to be able to play back YouTube content then?


> any lawyer worth their salt

Any statement that includes this phrase can be ignored as bad legal advice.


> they are still downloading and copying the file, regardless of what for or how much which is exactly what the RIAA is claiming. you can cite whatever it is you want, the fact is that youtube-dl is DEAD wrong in what they are doing.

This doesn't make any sense to me as an attack on a fair use defense.

Fair Use is, by definition, an affirmative defense against copyright infringement. To invoke it, you assume (even if arguendo) that the copying did take place. Fair Use is a legal justification of the copying, not an argument that copying did take place.

So, pointing out that copying took place and spiking the football as if that's the end of the conversation is nonsensical if you're arguing against a Fair Use defense.


Since when did fair use mean "no copying at all?"


> intent is also taken into account of fair use

And the intent of tests is to test the functionality of this software.


i totally agree with you, however the specific tests that the DCMA complaint is referring to is testing that the program circumvents protection to make sure the program can download specific copyrighted videos.


This is exactly the point. All they had to was use their own videos for the tests and readme and the dcma takedown would probably never would have happen. Plausible deniability.


As others have pointed out already... this is a blatant rip off of CSS Scan https://getcssscan.com/

not only is the website text copied, the look and feel of the product is ripped off as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of malware.


so does this mean that mcdonalds has publicly accessible api exposed to the internet?


and say they do make it illegal for state entities to pay ransoms... then what? what is going to happen when a ransom attack does happen? they contact the fbi... great... now what? how do they get their data back? what obligation does the fbi have to tracking down the gang and getting the data back? what's the time line?

see... the issue i see with making it illegal for state entities to pay ransoms is that you tie the hands of the victim without any guarantees that law enforcement will help and help in a timely manner. i see this as a lose, lose situation.


The point is that there's no incentive for hackers to target state entities.

Hackers can target state entities for other reasons, but no rational hacker would do it for the ransom, since there won't be any ransom paid.

The FBI can simply say "We'll never catch the hackers, but if you pay them you'll go to jail". It accomplishes the same goal of reducing the reward for hacking to zero.


ah.... yeah... they still will.

just cause they can't get a ransom, doesn't mean the data it's valuable as they can still sell it on the black market to carders and other gangs.

it's very ignorant to think that just because you cut off one area of revenue for these gangs that the problems will stop.


This works for targeted attacks, but doesn't work for untargeted, shotgun-ransom-ware attacks.

Shotgun attacks aren't discouraged if some X% of their targets can't/won't pay the ransom.


It seems this law is intended to benefit those with the most resources to implement the best security, leaving smaller businesses to pretty much pound sand.


You mean a pretty basic backup, that your grandma probably has enabled on her phone?


A backup won't protect you from full data disclosure.


You presume the attacker does not know the location of these backups.

Smart attackers do extensive research on their targets before performing the attack.


Isn’t this literally one of the reasons WORM storage solutions exist?


We have arrived at why "a pretty basic backup" is no longer feasible for...any business. A hard sell for a four person business with no dedicated IT team.


It's losing the battle but winning the war ...


Which sounds better to a general at HQ than to a private in a foxhole.


Sure, but to a general at HQ, 1 dead soldier is better than 10. The policy is devastating to that 1 soldier (and family), but that's not enough reason to adopt an opposing policy that would save the 1 but kill the 10.

Similarly, I can appreciate the logic in making American companies less likely to be targeted by ransom hackers, even if it means some companies are hit harder in the short term.


You've made the implicit assumption that it is acceptable and desirable for the government to sacrifice some companies to save some others. I'm not so sure that's the government's business, and it sounds a lot like a taking to me. Perhaps it is acceptable in the era of Kelo.


> You've made the implicit assumption that it is acceptable and desirable for the government to sacrifice some companies to save some others.

That's how governments operate. Every time a government "sneezes" is harms some companies and benefits others.


No, when governments provide public goods (their most widely-accepted role), they are not picking companies out for the gallows.


In that case I'm sure you won't mind if we repave all of the roads to my store twice as often and let the ones you rely on fall apart.


Roads are not exactly public goods, and can be 'club goods' or something between the two; the Wikipedia definition matrix has some nice examples, and the page is quite good overall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)#Defini...


OK, fair, although even with the example public goods listed in that Wikipedia page their provision in reality still does end up supporting certain companies and harming others - e.g. if I'm in the business of selling air purifiers, government efforts to reduce air pollution are going to negatively impact my sales.


I totally agree that government policy can shape the market, and my issue is not at all with that happening as a by-product of public goods, but only when it is a direct and deliberate action.


Got it. I think where I lost you was in your use of "picking companies out" - I didn't realize that you meant only intentionally as opposed to incidentally.



is it just me or did anyone just not get what was different about them? i had a debate with some yesterday trying to justify why them over netflix or any other existing streaming service for that matter and they couldn't, i couldn't either.


yeah, no... ORMs are A LOT more than just mashing strings together to perform a query.

they are there to take care of all of the crap that you don't want or need to worry about. for instance, parametrizing string against sql injections, handling transactions properly, concatenating joins, proper pagination and sql syntax discrepancies to name a few. and let's not to forget to mention things that go BEYOND the database interactions that are built on top of the ORM like data validations, custom properties, callbacks and so on.

there are way more benefits to using an ORM than not using one. a good ORM (like ActiveRecord) will let you break out of it and write raw sql when you need the perform boost while preventing yourself from shooting yourself in the foot.

* i've written and contributed to a couple of ORMs in my lifetime


Completely agree. Knowing and understanding SQL and query optimization is necessary because ORM is not magic.


cause he is selling a product based around this and the submitted title doesn't even mention this. its a bait and switch.


ah... so now we know the really for all this fuss from the author. it has nothing to do with respect for others and all about creating a market sell his product.


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