In the dispute over the Python library YouTube-DL, with which videos can be downloaded from the streaming platform, the developers of the open source software are unaffected by the legal threats from the other side. You have now released a new version of your software. The software was removed from Microsoft’s code-sharing platform GitHub following a DMCA cease-and-desist request by representatives of the US music industry, which sparked violent protests in the open source community, in parts of the press and among network activists.

Nat Friedman: “This time it annoyed me” Meanwhile, Nat Friedman has too , Managing Director of GitHub and longstanding open source developer in the GNOME environment, got involved. As reported by the news site TorrentFreak, Friedman is actively trying to restore YouTube-DL’s GitHub repository. “GitHub exists to help developers. We don’t want to complicate their work. We want to help the Youtube-DL developers to remove the DMCA cease-and-desist request from the world so that we can restore the repo,” the GitHub boss told TorrentFreak . Speaking to the website, Friedman also admitted that the case had annoyed him personally.

Friedman thinks the YouTube DL developers could do theirs Probably bring your code back online with a few minor changes without fear of legal consequences. It would therefore be advisable to remove an example of downloading copy-protected material from the program code. In addition, one would have to remove code that bypasses a measure (rolling cipher) with which YouTube prevents the download of some videos. However, it is not clear how many videos are protected in this way and whether it is not trivial to bypass this protection manually.

Legally questionable, in terms of PR a clear disaster Some observers are of the opinion that a lawsuit by the music industry interest group RIAA against YouTube-DL based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has little success. Because there is also a lot of content on YouTube that is under free licenses and is not provided with copy protection that has to be bypassed. This is how many network activists see it, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sharply criticized the RIAA’s DMCA injunction.

Regardless of any upcoming legal disputes, it seems clear that the RIAA shot themselves a violent own goal with their actions. In addition to global public criticism, so many GitHub users had duplicated the YouTube DL code in their own repositories that GitHub finally had to issue an explicit warning that users who take part in this protest run the risk of their GitHub account being damaged is blocked.

New version of Youtube-DL is available for download Also the Youtube-DL developers themselves do not seem intimidated by the threat of the music industry. They have a new version on their own website 2020. 11. 01. 1 of their software released. The changes contained therein apparently have nothing to do with the dispute with the RIAA. So far, the development of the software seems to proceed without restrictions.

(fab)