I disagree. This looks more like pandering than anything else. Friedman has nothing to lose by making public statements of support, but a lot of reputation to gain if people buy into it.
Instead of taking it down in the first place, Friedman should have told the RIAA to shove it, deliberately opening Github up to liability with the intent to defend this in courts and create precedent should the RIAA file suit. Even losing - and losing a few million in legal fees and damages in the process - and losing is far from certain - would create precedent that would create a lot more certainty of what goes and does not go with the current law, and give activists and lobbyists concrete jurisprudence to point to when approaching law makers and Library of Congress for changes.
Now that would have been real support. A somewhat risky move indeed, but also a necessary move if Friedman really thinks youtube-dl is an important piece of technology (with important policy implications).
Instead, he essentially left the developers, which lack the deep pockets of Github/Microsoft, to fight on their own, going even so far to suggest to budge to the RIAA's claims that youtube-dl contains a "circumvention" technology without challenge and remove the offending bits.
But at least he publicly stated he is "annoyed" by the RIAA. Talk is cheap. This is like showing up and telling David that "well, tough shit, Goliath is annoying but a lot bigger than you and will win, so you better capitulate, and I can help with that!".
(Yes, Microsoft being a RIAA member complicates things; Microsoft should in my humble opinion leave the RIAA; being a member of RIAA isn't compatible with their "we're the good guys now" image they are trying to foster regardless of the youtube-dl fiasco)
I'm not a lawyer but afaik the DMCA takedown process is prescribed by statute, and platforms must comply to qualify for the legal protections that make hosting user-generated content possible.
Friedman would certainly be removed by Microsoft if he jeopardized GitHub's legal protections by defying the mandated process, to say nothing of the potential of creating personal legal liability, both criminal and civil.
youtube-dl remains freely available off-GitHub (not to mention on the local disk of anyone who ran `git clone`). I just used it 10 minutes ago. There is no public good served by defying the law here, and there is no reason to put the whole kit and kaboodle on the line over it.
tl;dr, ignoring the DMCA process isn't just a "somewhat risky move". If we're going to break out the pitchforks, let's at least point them in the right direction: write your Congresscritters and tell them you want to see copyright law reform.
>I'm not a lawyer but afaik the DMCA takedown process is prescribed by statute, and platforms must comply to qualify for the legal protections that make hosting user-generated content possible.
Correct, that's why I said they should deliberately open themselves to liability, and the fight this in court.
Moreover, technically they already have, anyway. The anti-circumvention law (17 § 1201) does not even offer safe harbor protections; these are meant for copyright infringement only (17 § 512).
>Friedman would certainly be removed by Microsoft if he jeopardized GitHub's legal protections by defying the mandated process, to say nothing of the potential of creating personal legal liability, both criminal and civil.
Certainly? There is a risk of that happening, sure. But that is counter to the risk that MS faces from backlash within tech over a decision to fire him for taking on the RIAA.
But yeah, I know, Github and Microsoft standing up here is wishful thinking. One may dream :D
>youtube-dl remains freely available off-GitHub (not to mention on the local disk of anyone who ran `git clone`). I just used it 10 minutes ago. There is no public good served by defying the law here, and there is no reason to put the whole kit and kaboodle on the line over it.
It is less accessible. And the RIAA will not stop coming for them. Getting them thrown out of search results by sending the same legal bullshitery to google, bing, duckduckgo etc. Going after the hosters of the website (like they apparently already tried)
Moreover, they "lost" a large chunk of the community they had on github, incl issues and discussions etc (maybe Friedman at least has the stones to let them have their data?). People will also now think twice before getting involved in the project.
>tl;dr, ignoring the DMCA process isn't just a "somewhat risky move".
That's exactly what it is. The RIAA would have to respond by suing them (or stopping their campaign). Github isn't automatically liable, they just lost protection from liability, but can still win in courts.
Furthermore, if you view the IRC logs in question, he is only willing to reinstate the project if they remove the code the RIAA alleges violates Section 1201.
I guess you didn't open and read the screenshot from the IRC chat.
At the bottom of the image; after being asked what needs to be done, he says: "Just the rolling cipher circumvention code and the examples of how to get the copyrighted material" (emphasis mine).
He's essentially echoing the main talking point that YTDL isn't a scraping tool that acts as a User-Agent (which is legal), but an illegal tool that "circumvents technological measures" because it "decrypts" and runs some JS code just like any browser would.
It's what we call being "yeah, yeah yeah'd" -- I don't expect much from GitHubHQ at this point other than trying to save face and maintain their position as the "developers friend".
Asking the project authors to remove features that are covered by fair use isn't exactly what the authors want. It's better than no action, but not by much.
I'm wondering whether any legal team or similar have donated some time to figure out whether this is actually fair use or to set a precedent, because looking from the outside in, it clearly looks like an implementation meant to circumvent some form of intentionally-obfuscated protected handshake or access control.
From a strictly code based POV, it is intended to download protected objects with tests to ensure that protections are circumvented and the correct material can be retrieved. At the same time, removal of this code probably disables downloading of the majority of YouTube, and on top of that if there is no official collaboration on it, it'll be outdated within days.
That code is protection for YT TOS, not copyright law. If YT want's to use dcma in this way it should claim copyright of all posted material and see how that works out for them. Even if it the video's were copyrighted, it could be still be downloaded for fair use purpose rather than infringement. RIAA is using takedown's to protect google ad money, which is not the intended purpose of that legal action.
Youtube is not the copyright holder, the RIAA's members are. They have licensed their content to Youtube.
Youtube stores cache files to a user's computer, obfuscated so they can't be easily copied or accessed, most likely as part of the terms of their license. That is legally sufficient to constitute a copyright protection scheme.
Material is covered by fair use and can be used legally in that way. Takedowns are for copyrighted material being distributed to provide immediate relief, the yt-dl projects code is not owned by riaa therefore riaa is abusing the legal mechanism.
