How can a program be in violation of DMCA? Is a knife in violation of the criminal justice system because some people use it to kill and therefore no one can use it anywhere, ever? How ridiculous.
> Is a knife in violation of the criminal justice system because some people use it to kill and therefore no one can use it anywhere, ever?
I mean, guns are banned in many countries using precisely the same reasoning. And I might totally be wrong about this but I heard that in the UK you need to be over 18 to buy even just kitchen knives.
> in the UK you need to be over 18 to buy even just kitchen knives
There's a "Challenge 25" (formerly "Think 21!" IIRC) policy which covers these kinds of situations - although it is just a voluntary agreement from the major retailers.
> It’s illegal to [...] carry a knife in public without good reason, unless it has a folding blade with a cutting edge 3 inches long or less
> The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.
This blows my mind a little bit. I have a Swiss Army knife (among a ton of other things) in a waistbag that I carry most places I go. It proved very useful a few times, but other than "in case I need it" I don't have a particular reason I carry it. It seems really dystopian to me that in the UK, I could get 4 years in prison for that.
You'd need to combine location (possession at school, or in prison, or at a place where there is serious public disorder) or effect caused (causes serious alarm or distress), and also intent (crime based on hostility to religion, race, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity of the victim), or the blade would need to be a "highly dangerous weapon" (ie, not a swiss army knife).
Carrying a swiss army knife, and not having a good reason to do so, would be culpability D and harm 2, and so the sentence at mags would be a band C fine (about 1 week of your pay) or a medium level community order.
Does your Swiss Army Knife not fold? Is the blade on it over 3 inches long?
Unless I'm mistaken it looks to me like that law was written almost specifically so that Swiss Army knives in particular are considered an exception to the rule.
My particular knife is also longer than 3 inches, but it's a larger model and I think you would be correct to point out that most Swiss Army knives are shorter.
Guns are not banned in any country. They are restricted in almost every country, for good reasons. The level of restriction may vary based on culture, history etc.
Also people who claim the same logic applies to kitchen knife and guns are mentally still living in the wild west of the 1800s.
AFAIK guns were banned by the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Sakoku period till the Meiji revolution & gun ownership is still very limited in Japan even today.
Countries where guns are "banned" only include a handful of outliers. I think only Eritrea has a blanket ban on gun possession by civilians. "Applicants for a gun owner’s licence in Laos are required to establish a genuine reason to possess a firearm, for example hunting" (https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/laos).
Ah, sort of like how concealed carry isn't "banned" in Hawaii because a permitting process exists, but in reality <10 permits have been issued since the system's inception.
The primary intended purpose of a gun is to wound or kill humans or animals. You _can_ kill people with a kitchen knife, just like you can with a beer bottle or with your hands. Not exactly the same thing tho, is it?
This isn't a new debate; in the early days of the DMCA, it was used to go after the author of DeCSS [0], despite the fact that legitimate Fair Use cases for the tool exist (personal backups, playback on unsupported devices at the time, like Linux PCs). The case was in fact stronger there, as DeCSS explicitly circumvented encryption [1], which AFAIK youtube-dl does not.
And, of course, the infamous case of Napster [2]; while the vast majority of user behavior was obviously piracy, the tool/network itself was content-neutral, and could also be used for public domain content, or works published with the permission of the copyright holder.
From the youtube-dl source code, in a file helpfully called youtube.py:
def _decrypt_signature(self, s, video_id, player_url, age_gate=False):
"""Turn the encrypted s field into a working signature"""
if player_url is None:
raise ExtractorError('Cannot decrypt signature without player_url')
It definitely does do decryption, as stated in the DMCA claim:
> is a technology primarily designed or produced for the purpose of, and marketed for, circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to copyrighted sound recordings on YouTube
.. and some claims referencing a 'youtube to mp3' site ruled illegal by a German court.
Not defending this, 'effective technological measures' are a horribly broadly-scoped hole, but there is decryption at play here.
Could you make the argument that the technological measures are not effective and therefore not "effective technological measures" since youtube-dl is able to access the recordings in spite of them?
You could make the argument that the technological measures are not effective (the RIAA says this was rejected by a court in Hamburg), but not in that extreme form. If the existence of a working circumvention tool implied that the technical measures were not “effective,” then all circumvention tools would be legal and the law would have no effect. “Effective” must mean something more than “so ineffective that it can be circumvented with common sense,” and something less than “so effective that there’s no need to make its circumvention illegal.”
The DMCA contains provisions that criminalize circumvention tools. The plaintiff only has to prove that a tool is mainly designed to aid in copyright infringement and/or that's the most common use. It's a super super bad law, but has unfortunately been used quite successfully over the past 20 years by the likes of the RIAA and MPAA and others.
> Is a knife in violation of the criminal justice system because some people use it to kill and therefore no one can use it anywhere, ever?
Many jurisdictions in the US consider carrying a hidden knife beyond a certain length as illegal carry of a concealed weapon.
> Some knives (switchblades and gravity knives especially) are illegal in most places.
I think it's usually about carrying them in public outside your house. Likely not as illegal to have them at home.
Gravity knives are scary in that the police have occasionally argued that certain common pocketknives (e.g. Leatherman) can be used as a gravity knife and arrest people (usually minorities of the wrong color). I once was going on a road trip across multiple states and had to research the laws of each state because I was carrying a Leatherman.
I don't get why you where downvoted. the analogy is pretty accurate. knifes are utilities which can be used to kill. guns are made for killing only.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for youtube-dl. There is even fair use in the US. How can i make fair use, eg. remix or a commentary if i can't access the videos outside of youtube.
