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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

The case of youtube-dl using snippets of copyrighted material for testing is very different from showing a media player viewing copyrighted material. The former is easy to argue is breaking copyright protections while the latter is not.

We'll be in a very different world if VLC couldn't even show that it can play mainstream media in it (check out the screenshots over at https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html)

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I see what you're saying, but isn't showing screenshots of obviously copyrighted material just another form of testing?

No, testing (in terms of software testing) refers to the process of verifying something is working as expected. The test suite for youtube-dl is/was using snippets of DRM protected material to ensure that their anti-DRM techniques were working as expected.

Showing a screenshot of copyrighted material is just that, showing a screenshot of copyrighted material. Nothing is downloaded, asserted or even evaluated. For all we know, they can have a license for that material (or live in Germany, where ripping your owned DVD disks is legal).

Two vastly different things.

It's not showing a DVD or BluRay player, or a web-based streaming browser plugin. It's showing a clearly named Matroska video file containing a copyrighted movie that is very unlikely to be legally available in Matroska format.

Sorry there isn't a defense here that would stand up to review.

If you own the DVD or BluRay, there's nothing wrong with backing it up to a file named Avengers.PIRATED.BluRay.ReLEAsE.1080p.Cr4ked.mkv or whatever suits your fancy. And taking a screenshot of it would not be evidence of infringement, because there would be no infringement.

I understand your paranoia when it comes to the MPAA, and certainly there's nothing physically stopping them from becoming a thorn in someone's side. But let's be clear, they would be in the wrong.

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