The RIAA is going for video downloaders, the first to fall has been YouTube-DL

Without a doubt, YouTube is the most used video platform in the world. There are many of us who use it both to upload our videos and to see those of other users and companies, but sometimes it is not enough for us to watch a video and we want to download it to see it more times and without connection. One of the tools that was used the most in Linux was called YouTube-DL, and we are talking in the past tense because it can no longer be downloaded.

The person responsible has been the Recording Industry Association of the United States, RIAA for its acronym in English, which has in its sights the software that is used to violate copyrights, such as some video downloaders. This is the case with YouTube-DL, partly because could be used to download even those videos that shouldn't, unlike what happens with services such as those offered SaveFrom.net They only serve us if the video is not protected in any way.

YouTube-DL is deprecated on GitHub

If we go now to the YouTube-DL GitHub page, we see a statement that seems to be sent by the RIAA, which accounts for nearly 85% of the consumption of legally recorded music in the United States, and says that the association «is authorized to act on behalf of its member companies in matters related to the infringement of its sound recordings, audiovisual works and images, including the enforcement of its copyright and common law on the Internet«. Therefore, and under threat of being sued, its developers have removed YouTube-DL from GitHub.

And not only that: in the statement, the RIAA also mentions that there are dozens of projects that use your code and they claim that they infringe the same rights, to which they say nothing but imply that the RIAA could take, and in fact is expected to take, the same measures against them.

What personally makes me doubt a bit is a point: it is assumed that what YouTube-DL was violating was section 1201 of the Copyright law of the United States, and in it Nothing can bypass DRM content is prohibited. I mention this for a personal impression, because Firefox does not ask us to activate DRM to play YouTube content, but considering that "DR" stands for "Digital Rights", they do appear to violate that section. It not only prohibits the distribution of protected content, but also breaks its protections and duplicates it.

So now what?

If you were using YouTube-DL, you should still be able to use it, as long as you don't uninstall it. For those who no longer have it, there are still ways to download YouTube content like YouTube-DL did, starting with the aforementioned SaveFrom.net, TubeNinja.net or other alternatives, such as jdownloader or one that we can use from Firefox that we explain in our sister blog, here.