stream ripping – Techdirt (original) (raw)

RIAA, Stream-Ripping Sites Engaged In Dumb Game Of Whac-A-Mole With Search Engines

from the get-ripped dept

As we’ve detailed previously, the RIAA has for the past year or so specifically moved on to targeting stream-ripping sites as a primary focus. It’s not entirely without logic, as more and more piracy by percentage has moved away from direct file downloads and torrents, and onto ripping streams. The focus has largely been on YouTube, where some sites have declined to play games and accepted defeat. But the RIAA is also targeting these sites to have them delisted from search engines. There, the whac-a-mole game is most definitely being played.

The upside for the RIAA is that there’s no standard counter-notice option for these requests. So, even when site owners don’t agree with the request, they have no option to protest it. Besides going to court, perhaps.

That doesn’t mean that these operators are sitting idly by while their search traffic is taken away. On the contrary, behind these scenes there’s a full-blown takedown war going on. Or to phrase it less aggressive: a game of takedown whack-a-mole.

Pretty much all of the large YouTube rippers are continuously updating to new URLs, which are not yet taken down by the RIAA. In most cases, new numbers are simply added to the URL. This ensures that their websites continue to show up in Google’s search results.

If this all sounds exceedingly pointless to you, welcome to the club. By trying a route that doesn’t allow actual protest and oversight, the RIAA has instead chosen a method that is gloriously ineffective. Get a search engine to delist a URL, and the stream-ripping site simply alters the URL and gets it listed once more. Then the RIAA requests the delist on that new URL, at which point we rinse and repeat. The end result?

The result is a game of whack-a-mole that can potentially continue for years. Unless one side gives up of course.

None of the YouTube rippers we contacted responded to our request for comment. From what we can see, their traffic doesn’t appear to be impacted much. Some have seen a drop in traffic recently, but others witnessed an uptick at the same time. In any case, all the major sites are still findable in Google’s search results.

Whatever you may think of the RIAA’s claim that stream-ripping sites ought to be taken down, a claim that I very much disagree with, we should all certainly be able to agree that this current strategy is completely pointless. It’s time to come up with a new plan, RIAA folks, because when you play whac-a-mole, the idea is that you never actually win.

Filed Under: copyright, delisting, search, stream ripping, whac-a-mole
Companies: google, riaa

from the fine-you-win dept

We have been talking these past few weeks about a strange game of whac-a-mole currently being played between YouTube and a whole bunch of stream-ripping websites. While stream-ripping sites have been targeted by the music industry specifically for some time now, despite a wide range of non-infringing uses of such technology, it was only recently that YouTube decided to participate in all of this by blocking access to its platform for many of these sites. Built around claims of ToS violations, it’s fairly clear that YouTube’s actual goal in all of this is to appear to be attempting to bow to the music industry’s wishes. Despite the blocks, many of these sites have managed to route around the blockade, thus the game of whac-a-mole.

But not all such sites have taken this stance. Onlinevideoconverter.com, which initially routed around the block, has since announced that it is voluntarily leaving the hide-and-seek game and will simply stop converting YouTube videos itself.

However, the team behind the site isn’t planning to keep up this fight. People who access the stream-ripper today will notice that YouTube downloads have stopped working again. A site representative informs TorrentFreak that this is intentional.

“In view of YouTube’s latest stance, we’ve decided to disable the conversion of all YouTube videos on our service,” OVC says.

The stream-ripping site notes that the decision was taken voluntarily and not after it was contacted directly by rightsholders or YouTube. OVC simply believes that it’s the best direction to take and it stresses that other downloading and conversion tools remain available.

While other sites are still keeping up with the game, the exit of OVC is significant, as it is certainly one of the most popular stream-ripping sites on the internet. This may, of course, have been part of YouTube’s overall plan. While its initial strike wasn’t particularly effective, perhaps it actually was if seen as something of a warning shot. Google and YouTube have a ton of legal and influential weight to throw around, after all, and taking this initial action was bound to be enough to spook some sites.

Which is a shame, actually. The fact remains that these sites have legitimate uses. I’ve used them in the past for publicly available lectures and educational material from technology manufacturers that have no reason to view an audio rip as problematic. And, again, what about the artists out there who actually embrace what the internet can offer and want their work made as widely available as possible?

They don’t matter in this fight, apparently. And that’s a reality the music industry, and apparently now YouTube, can’t seem to recognize.

Filed Under: copyright, culture, fair use, stream ripping, whac-a-mole
Companies: onlinevideoconverter, youtube

Stream-Ripping Sites And YouTube Now Engaged In Whac-A-Mole

from the inevitable dept

As we’ve been talking about for a bit now, there is a new favorite target of the music industry when it comes to anti-piracy efforts: stream-ripping websites. It’s important to continue to point out that, despite the plain fact that these sites are quite often used to generate audio-rips of copyrighted music video material, that is most certainly not their only use. Other uses for these sites are non-infringing. But this is the music industry we’re talking about, with it’s storied history of carpet-bombing technology tools rather than precision bombing actual infringement.

Meanwhile, YouTube more recently decided to conspire with the music industry against these sites by blocking several prominent stream-ripping sites without word or warning. From that original post we wrote:

All of this is made even more strange in that Google didn’t give any heads up about this new policy, isn’t talking about it now, and has to know that it isn’t going to work long-term.

That last bit was an easy prediction to make. I’ve seen the site-blocking movie before and I know how it ends. In ends in the game of whac-a-mole that almost immediately kicked off in the aftermath of the site-blocks.

And indeed, little over a week after the blocking efforts started, many of the targeted sites are able to rip MP3s from YouTube again.

Mp3-youtube.download almost instantly announced that it was working on a fix and today the site is working just fine. The same is true for Dlnowsoft.com, which was also blocked last week, as well as the massively popular Onlinevideoconverter.com, which is among the top 200 most-visited sites on the Internet.

There is some more in TorrentFreak’s post, much of which seems to indicate that either YouTube didn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about how it was going to win this inevitable battle or that YouTube wanted to take the most minimal actions it could to tell the music industry it was trying while knowing how this all was eventually going to go. If the latter, it’s fairly cynical. If the former…well, it’s probably not the former.

The block itself appeared to be a simple IP-range block, easily routed around by the site operators.

“To fix the problem, we simply used other servers that are not in the range of IP-addresses blocked by YouTube,” the operator of the stream-ripping site informed us.

If YouTube is indeed serious about its efforts to take out ‘voliative’ stream-ripping sites, it will likely block the new IP-addresses as well, eventually. This will then trigger a proverbial cat and mouse game, one we know all too well from other pirate site blocking efforts.

Mp3-youtube.download informs us that they indeed took countermeasures, like the other sites that work again.

“I think the YouTube update is stupid because we will always find a solution,” the operator says.

Stupid, perhaps, but not in the way that last quote suggests, I don’t think. Instead, it would be better for YouTube, which obviously isn’t taking this too seriously, to refuse the music industry’s requests to inhibit technology tools that aren’t in themselves infringing. YouTube can enforce its own ToS or not, but it shouldn’t bother even pretending to want to do battle with site operators on behalf of the music industry.

Filed Under: copyright, stream ripping, whac-a-mole
Companies: youtube

YouTube Begins Blocking Stream-Ripping Sites

from the carpet-bomb dept

As we’ve discussed previously, the past several years have seen the major music industry players paint an entirely new anti-piracy target on the backs of stream-ripping sites. These sites, which allow users to plug in the address for a YouTube video and get an audio rip outputted, are quite often used to generate audio files of copyrighted materials. This, however, is most certainly not their only use. In fact, there are many legitimate uses for these sites. I, myself, often use them to convert publicly available lectures and educational material put out by everything from universities to technology manufacturers so that I can listen to them while on the go. In this way, the music industry is once again taking a tool that can be but is not always used for copyright infringement and attempting to carpet bomb them all to hell.

And now they appear to have found an ally in YouTube, which recently and rather silently began blocking access to the sites from known stream-ripping websites.

Several operators of YouTube-to-MP3 rippers have confirmed that the streaming service is actively blocking requests from their sites.

“All my servers are blocked with error ‘HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests’,” the operator of Dlnowsoft.com informs TorrentFreak. As a result, the stream-ripping site currently displays a “service temporarily unavailable, we will come back soon” error message.

The site in question is not alone. Mp3-youtube.download, another stream-ripper, is facing a similar issue. According to its operator, something changed yesterday evening and users now see a ‘this URL does not exist’ error message when they try to convert a YouTube clip. The massively popular Onlinevideoconverter.com, which is among the top 200 most-visited sites on the Internet, appears to be affected as well.

On the one hand, this isn’t the most surprising development in human history. Like any service provider, there is a certain amount of instinct in wanting to retain control over one’s product. Stream-ripping sites route around the control YouTube would otherwise have.

That being said, it’s an odd move for a company that used to tout a mantra of “Don’t be evil.” After all, it wouldn’t take a lot of work or thought to argue convincingly that removing the ability for people to hear educational materials on the go, such as I do, is some level of bad, if not evil. On top of that, how about any artist or content creator who might actually enjoy the fact that their material can be made audibly available in this manner? Certainly the number of people that fit such a category is not zero. Google’s new policy surely is harming them, is it not?

All of this is made even more strange in that Google didn’t give any heads up about this new policy, isn’t talking about it now, and has to know that it isn’t going to work long-term.

None of the site operators we heard from was warned by YouTube in advance. We also reached out to the video streaming service for a comment and further details, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.

While YouTube’s efforts, intentional or not, are effective, they will likely trigger a cat-and-mouse game. The operator of a popular stream-ripper, who prefers to remain anonymous, managed to get around the blockade by deploying several proxy servers.

I’ve seen this movie before and I know how it ends. And for what? To block sites that are sometimes used by users to infringe, but not always, and to appease a music industry that is never, ever, ever going to be on YouTube’s side? Come on.

Filed Under: blocking, copyright, stream ripping
Companies: youtube

Foreign Stream-Ripping Site Wins Against Music Labels Based On Jurisdiction

from the not-like-this dept

It’s been quite frustrating to watch the music industry continually turn its legal gaze to whatever it insists is the “new” threat. From the traditional piratey-scapegoats like Napster, to torrent sites, and on to file-lockers, before finally moving over to stream-ripping sites — it’s been quite predictable, if a bit silly. As with so many industry-led crusades against technology tools, this attack on these types of sites carries with it the misguided notion that because a site or tool can be used to infringe on music copyrights, it therefore is an enemy and must be shut down entirely. We’ve seen this same tactic used against tons of technology tools that have had perfectly legal uses in the past, but in the case of stream-ripping sites, most have decided to simply fold.

Which makes it somewhat noteworthy that one foreign site is fighting back and winning against a legal challenge in the US, if only on jurisdictional grounds.

FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, owned by Russian developer Tofig Kurbanov, remained online despite being sued by several record labels last August. Where other site owners often prefer to remain in the shadows, Kurbanov filed a motion to dismiss the case. According to the defense, the court has no jurisdiction over the matter. Only a small fraction of the visitors come from the US, and the site is managed entirely from Russia, it argued.

The RIAA labels involved in the suit disagreed, of course. As with all lawsuits of this kind, the labels merely see a tool that American users can get to, and can use to infringe, therefore it must be killed off. FLVTO pointing out that it doesn’t do anything to entice American users to its site, nor does it engage in any commercial activity on the site other than displaying advertisements, did nothing to keep the RIAA from suing. It did, however, convince the judge to toss the case on jurisdictional grounds.

“Even if the Websites’ servers knew exactly where the users were located, any interaction would still be in the unilateral control of the users as they initiate the contacts,” Judge Hilton’s opinion reads.

There could be personal jurisdiction if there’s a “commercial contract” involved. However, that’s not the case here. The site generates revenue from users through advertisements, but that’s not seen as a basis for a commercial contract, the court concludes.

In other words, an American company can’t sue a foreign operator in the US simply because the internet works as intended.

While this is a good ruling generally, it might be nice to get the courts to establish some clarity on the legal status of stream-ripping sites. Again, these are essentially dumb sites that don’t care whether the rip is infringing or not. They are a tool, nothing more. Given that, the fact that these sites are shutting themselves down under the mere threat of lawsuits represents a pretty clear chilling effect on the dissemination of otherwise legal tools and technology to the internet writ large.

This is especially true given that we already have a pretty clear precedent for this issue. Stream ripping is little different from the VCR in effect. It is taking a “stream” of live content, and “recording” it for personal use and storage. Thirty-five years ago, the Supreme Court made it clear that this was perfectly legal in the famous Sony Betamax case. In that case, the court found that there were substantial non-infringing uses of the technology — as is true of stream rippers — and that “time shifting” of content that was being streamed live was a perfectly legitimate use. As the ruling in the Betamax case found:

The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses. In order to resolve that question, we need not explore all the different potential uses of the machine and determine whether or not they would constitute infringement. Rather, we need only consider whether, on the basis of the facts as found by the District Court, a significant number of them would be noninfringing. Moreover, in order to resolve this case, we need not give precise content to the question of how much use is commercially significant. For one potential use of the Betamax plainly satisfies this standard, however it is understood: private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home. It does so both (A) because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing it for their programs, and (B) because the District Court’s factual findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents’ programs is legitimate fair use.

It is difficult to see how that same standard does not apply to stream ripping as well — but so far, the RIAA (in particular) is acting as if the Supreme Court ruled the opposite way in the Betamax case, and because many of these sites are small, they have little desire to actually fight a huge, costly legal battle. And thus, the RIAA has mostly been able to kill off the modern VCR. This case turned on jurisdiction issues, which is a good start, but a clear ruling that stream ripping is legal, a la the Betamax, would be even better.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, intermediary liability, jurisdiction, recording, stream ripping, substantial non-infringing uses, time-shifting, tofig kurbanov
Companies: 2conv, flvto.biz

from the intended-consequence dept

Late last year, after Australia proposed amending its copyright laws, which included some subtle language changes, the country approved the amendments and we immediately warned that this would be abused, feature-creeped, and otherwise utilized by the content industries to restrict access to the internet in favor of their own bottom lines. One of the subtle language changes mentioned above consisted of going from allowing site-blocking of sites where their “primary purpose” was infringing activity to allowing blocking of sites where their “primary effect” was infringing activity. This change was an important one, because it puts the onus for whether a site can be blocked on how users use the tool, rather than how it was intended to be used. And, of course, there is simply more subjectivity in “primary effect” than there is in “primary purpose”, leading us to warn that this would be abused.

And, a mere few months later, the music industry is in court citing the new law to get approval to have ISPs block stream-ripping sites.

The Federal Court action is being coordinated by Music Rights Australia, with the support of the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) as well as Sony Music Entertainment Australia Pty Ltd, Universal Music Australia Pty Limited and Warner Music Australia Pty Limited.

Stream-ripping sites allow users to record and save the audio streamed from a service such as Spotify or YouTube. The services have not previously been the subject of legal action in Australia. (In November, Sony Music emerged victoriousfrom a fight against stream-ripping service MusicMonster.fm in a German court, with the service being declared illegal.)

Now, as we’ve discussed in the past, the problem here is that there are a ton of legitimate uses for stream-ripping sites. I personally use them all the time to get audio-only for videos made public by educational institutions, by people that do how-to videos, lectures, etc. The primary purpose of stream-ripping sites is not infringement; it’s to rip streams, not all of which are infringing. But the primary effect? Well, that’s open to interpretation and the Australian government has bent over backwards to give the content industries the benefit of every doubt. Plenty of infringement happens with stream-ripping sites, because that’s how users choose to use them. But it’s not their purpose.

And yet, because of this poorly amended law, these sites are now staring down the censorship barrel.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, copyright, isps, site blocking, stream ripping
Companies: music rights australia, sony music, universal music, warner music

Why Does The USTR Still Think Any Website That Might Upset Hollywood Is Illegal?

from the that's-not-how-it-works? dept

We’ve written a few times in the past about the USTR’s ridiculous “notorious markets” report, which is an offshoot of the already ridiculous Special 301 report, in which the USTR is supposed to name and shame countries that don’t respect US intellectual property laws… based on whichever lobbyists whined the most to the USTR (seriously: the process is no more scientific than that). The “notorious markets” report is even more ridiculous, and lets the USTR go even further afield, often naming perfectly legal internet services just because Hollywood doesn’t like them. It got seriously ridiculous last year when the USTR expanded the list of domain registrars, including the very popular domain registrar Tucows. The USTR claimed that it was okay to put Tucows on the list because it “failed to take action” when notified of infringement.

Um. But that’s the correct thing to do. A registrar’s job is just to manage domain registrations and not to police what’s on those sites, or to strip those domains. If someone is infringing on copyrights/trademarks/whatever, take it up with whoever is behind the site, not two steps removed to the company that registered the domain. Many people pointed this out last year, but this is the USTR we’re talking about, and the USTR doesn’t give a fuck. It just went right back out and with the release of the 2016 Notorious Markets List is still listing domain registrars and other websites that are perfectly legal, but which Hollywood or other big legacy industries don’t like very much.

While Tucows is no longer listed, they do name Domainerschoice as a “notorious market” because many online pharmacies have purchased domain URLs from that registrar. But, again, if the online pharmacies are the problem, go after those pharmacies, don’t blame the domain registrar. Domainerschoice is just creating a database and selling URLs, not hosting any content or selling any drugs, legal, gray market or illegal.

The new report also puts a special focus on the perfectly legal stream ripping business. There are many legal purposes and reasons to be able to record streaming audio/video, but the USTR pretends there are none and that this is a great scourge:

Stream ripping is an emerging trend in digital copyright infringement that is increasingly causing substantial economic harm to music creators and undermining legitimate services. Stream ripping is the unauthorized act of converting a file from a licensed streaming site into an unauthorized copy for distribution via download to the requester. Stream ripping often involves violations of terms of use and the circumvention of technological protection measures that legitimate streaming services put in place to protect music content from unauthorized copying and distribution. A study from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry shows that stream ripping is on the rise in the world?s leading music markets. Nearly 30 percent of Internet users obtain unauthorized copies of music from stream ripping services. This is the first Notorious Markets review in which copyright stakeholders have nominated stream ripping sites for inclusion in the List.

As EFF points out, stream ripping has plenty of perfectly legal uses, and if they’re a violation of a site’s terms of service, that’s for the site to deal with, not the US government:

In many cases, stream ripping is a legitimate, lawful activity. YouTube contains thousands of videos with audio tracks that are freely licensed, and some that aren’t copyright-protected at all. In other cases, stream ripping may be a fair use of a copyright-protected audio track. In fact, EFF’s Cory Doctorow writes, ?I used YouTube-MP3 to rip a video of my own reading, of my own story, just today?so I could include it in my podcast feed.?

While the USTR points out that stream ripping may be in violation of the terms of use of the streaming site?YouTube, in this case?that is nobody’s business but YouTube’s. While YouTube is at liberty to block YouTube-MP3 from accessing its servers if indeed they are violating its terms of service, this doesn’t give the government or copyright holders any similar cause for complaint.

Hell, it’s not like there isn’t a major Supreme Court ruling noting that recording streams (television, in that case) for the purpose of time shifting is perfectly legal fair use, and the makers of the equipment to do so are not violating the law, so long as there are “substantial non-infringing uses.”

Does the USTR simply not know the law? Or do they know and just not care?

The EFF also points out two other serious problems with the new report, including naming Libgen and Bookfi to the list — both of which are online libraries, with a focus on providing educational materials to people who couldn’t otherwise access it. We’ve written a few times in the past about Libgen, mainly because the similarly infamous Sci-Hub uses it as a source for academic papers. While the EFF notes that it’s likely that these online libraries may be violating copyright law, they are doing so to further access to knowledge and educational materials. It kinda says something when the USTR thinks that’s a “notorious market” that is a problem.

Finally, there’s the question of cyberlockers. Here, again, the USTR seems to ignore the law, and the fact that cyberlockers are protected by the DMCA’s safe harbors. The USTR, again, doesn’t seem to care, because the entertainment industry is whining. In particular, there are concerns about the naming of 4shared, a site that complies with DMCA takedowns and and has gone above and beyond that by offering up a ContentID-like filter to implement a form of notice-and-staydown that is not required by the law. But the USTR doesn’t care.

Because the files uploaded to 4shared are uploaded by users, the site is protected from liability by the safe harbor provided by section 512 of the DMCA, and is only required to disable access to infringing files once a copyright holder sends it a notice in compliance with that law. This is one of the bedrock principles that underpins the success of America’s dynamic and innovative Internet industry.

Like YouTube, 4shared has also voluntarily chosen to go above and beyond the requirements of the law, by also putting in place a music identification service that blocks users from sharing files that match music tracks that a copyright holder claims to own. We have serious concerns about such automated content matching systems, but leaving that aside, the adoption of such a system hardly seems like the behavior of a website dedicated to facilitating infringement.

And that’s not all. The USTR has also named the popular Russian social network Vkontakte (VK). For years, VK was well-known as a place where people uploaded and could access tons of unauthorized content, but in recent years, the company has been cutting tons of licensing deals to make all of that content authorized. So the company is not at all happy to be back on the list, seeing as it’s spent years getting licensing deals. So why is it still on the list? Because the USTR apparently wants to cement its reputation as a laughingstock in the copyright world, where whatever Hollywood says is the law it abides by, rather than the actual laws of the United States.

Filed Under: cyberlockers, domain registrars, notorious markets, stream ripping, ustr
Companies: 4shared, domainerschoice, libgen

Can Someone Explain To The RIAA That SOPA Didn't Actually Pass?

from the let's-try-this-again dept

Earlier this week, basically all of the major record labels filed a lawsuit against YouTube-mp3.org, which as you may have guessed from the URL, helps people get audio downloads from YouTube videos. There have been a number of similar sites over the years, and they tend to disappear relatively quickly. Apparently this one lasted long enough that the major labels decided to sue.

There are many, many, many problems with the lawsuit which we’ll be discussing, but let’s start with the big one. The RIAA and the labels seem to believe that SOPA became law back in 2012, rather than being soundly rejected. That’s because, as the EFF notes in a blog post, the real target of the lawsuit does not appear to be Youtube-mp3.org, but a bunch of third party service providers. Specifically, the lawsuit asks for two highly questionable remedies targeting non-parties to the lawsuit:

enjoining Defendants and all third parties with notice of the Order, including any Web hosts, domain-name registrars, domain name registries, and proxy or reverse proxy services, and their administrators, from facilitating access to any or all domain names, URLs and websites (including, without limitation, www.youtube-mp3.org) through which Defendants infringe Plaintiffs? copyrights;

and

enjoining all third parties with notice of the Order from maintaining, operating, or providing advertising, financial, technical, or other support to YTMP3 and any other domain names, URLs, or websites through which Defendants infringe Plaintiffs? copyrights, including without limitation www.youtubemp3.org; and enjoining all third-party distributors of applications, toolbars or similar software with notice of the Order from distributing any applications, toolbars, or similar software applications that interoperate with any domain names, URLs, or websites through which Defendants infringe Plaintiffs? copyrights, including without limitation www.youtube-mp3.org.

Again, this was the kind of remedy SOPA was designed to enable. But SOPA did not become law. As the EFF points out:

As we?ve explained before in other cases, this request is a gross overreach. Federal court rules have a narrow provision that lets successful plaintiffs request a court order against a defendant and people in ?active concert and participation? with them, meaning a close associate or co-conspirator. That provision doesn?t allow for orders that bind every vendor providing services to a defendant, especially those with no direct business relationship. So the litany of intermediaries listed in the labels? complaint are not within the court?s power to bind.

What the complaint asks for is also far broader than the law allows. By asking all of those intermediaries to block all ?websites through which Defendants infringe Plaintiffs? copyrights,? without specifying the URLs, the labels are seeking to conscript all of these companies as investigators who must chase down the defendants and block every website they use, under any name. Neither copyright nor trademark law allows courts to put this burden on Internet intermediaries, and for good reason: it?s prohibitively expensive for many, it inevitably leads to blocking of lawful speech, and it gives a big advantage to established players.

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, the record labels want to ban ?any applications? that might ?interoperate? with with youtube-mp3.org and any other websites owned by the defendants. That would seem to require every Web browser, mobile app, and Internet-connected device to block an ever-changing list of websites. Left unchecked, these kinds of orders could become a mechanism whereby the content industry gets veto power over online innovation.

Also, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in California, the site is owned by a guy in Germany, Philip Matesanz. An RIAA press release notes that the IFPI has also indicated it’s going to file a similar case in the UK. Considering that there’s a decently high chance that the guy in Germany won’t bother responding to a lawsuit halfway around the world, the RIAA and its labels may simply be hoping for a default judgment, which they can then use to force all those third parties into blocking a website, despite a lack of a full trial over the issues with the case.

And, oh boy, does this lawsuit have serious issues. On a conceptual level, how is what this site is doing really all that different from a VCR in recording a TV show? In this case, it’s just recording an audio file from a video file. And such recordings for personal time shifting uses are considered fair use and not infringing. It’s also quite a useful tool for other fair use activities too — we’ve used a similar site to grab audio quotes from videos for discussion in our podcast. The “stream ripping” site is just a tool for making such fair use recordings, meaning it has substantial non-infringing uses. So why do the RIAA and these labels insist that it’s infringing?

The lawsuit notes that this service likely violates YouTube’s terms of service, but YouTube/Google are not the plaintiff. They’re not the ones arguing over the terms of service being violated (in fact, you could argue that Google is a target of the lawsuit via the third party injunction attempts discussed above).

Part of the lawsuit alleges that YTMP3 violates the DMCA by “circumventing” YouTube’s “technological measures” designed to block access to the actual video file, but it’s not clear how this kind of thing is really a technological protection measure under the DMCA. All it does is obscure the full URL, but still make it accessible. Is it really circumvention to figure out how to get to a publicly accessible URL? That seems like a big leap by the RIAA:

Plaintiffs are informed and believe, and on that basis allege as follows: YouTube has adopted and implemented technological measures to control access to content maintained on its site and to prevent or inhibit downloading, copying, or illicit distribution of that content. YouTube maintains two separate URLs for any given video file: one URL, which is visible to the user, is for the webpage where the video playback occurs, and one URL, which is not visible to the user, is for the video file itself. The second URL is generated using a complex (and periodically changing) algorithm ? known as a ?rolling cipher? ? that is intended to inhibit direct access to the underlying YouTube video files, thereby preventing or inhibiting the downloading, copying, or distribution of the video files.

That second URL is not “protected” in any real way. It’s a publicly accessible URL — it’s just that YouTube doesn’t make it easy to find. So does that really count as circumvention? That seems like a big question here as well.

Either way, as noted above, these important questions may not get answered if YTMP3 simply decides to ignore the lawsuit — and the RIAA may very well be counting on that. It really does seem like the labels deliberately picked a site that is likely not interested in defending this lawsuit, no matter how questionable, allowing it to really go after a ton of 3rd party sites and services, as if SOPA were the law.

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright, dmca, sopa, stream ripping, third party injunctions