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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

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.

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