I wonder if this is the official stance of the project itself, since this commit was authored by a person who hadn't made a single commit for more than 5 years.
> HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA)
This is clear gaslighting and is verifiably false. Progressive Web Apps is a Google thing, coined by a Google engineer[1] and promoted by Google[2]. The HTML living standard does not include a single mention of the term[3].
It's subtle misinformation that's designed to change how people unconsciously perceive PWAs. When people bring up PWAs, they commonly refer to a particular set of APIs which has a tendency of mainly being a Google-driven effort. GP is muddying the waters by instead framing it as the HTML spec itself and implying it's official.
If this isn't a clear case of gaslighting, I don't know what is.
I'd argue this is a lie and not an example of gaslighting.
A lie is simply stating something that is not true. In this case, stating that HTML5 is synonymous to PWAs.
Gaslighting is an attempt to undermine an individual's (or perhaps even a group's) certainty that they are able to perceive reality correctly. It's essentially an effort to make someone question their own sanity. Lying is a tool that may be used as part of this effort, but it is not the only method of gaslighting.
It's also possible to lie without gaslighting. Speaking mis-truths may happen accidentally. But trying to cause someone to believe something that isn't true, isn't necessarily or inherently an attack on their trust in their own ability to perceive the world.
In this case, I can't see any indication that the goal is to cause anyone to feel insane.
According to Hagemeister (source in this article), the tests only download the first 10 KB of the videos, landing this very strongly in the domain of fair use.
If true, that actually is relevant to the fair use analysis outlined in 17 USC 107 (factor (3)).
The problem though is that as a tool it is subject to a different analysis, 17 USC 1201, and so it must be evaluated on the basis of whether it is intended to circumvent a copyright, and that is why many of us keep bringing up the fact that they include RIAA-focused tests: it shows that at least part of the purpose of the tool was to download music videos.
The presumption that anyone in some test has accessed material on youtube that might not be allowed to be downloaded in the USA does not justify the removal of the project's repositories, as it was done with the support of Github.
EDIT: If this were legal, any communications program that was used for a disputable action once (so each browser), could be closed off from the public as well.
If this were legal, any communications program that was used for a disputable action once (so each browser), could be closed off from the public as well.
No, because that's not the test under 1201. The test is whether the tool is designed and/or offered for the purpose of circumventing copyright. If it's designed for other purposes but can incidentally circumvent copyright, that's fine. (For example: calibre is designed to organize ebook libraries, and offers itself for that purpose. They make no mention of the separate plugins that can be used to crack Amazon DRM.)
> The test is whether the tool is designed and/or offered for the purpose of circumventing copyright
It is not more designed and/or offered for this purpose than any other communication tool. At least I didn't see an evidence. The fact that it could be used is not sufficient. The goal of the whole exercise was probably more to set an example and to intimidate people a bit.
EDIT: That is probably why they called in the RIAA, which is quite peculiar. The RIAA is no copyright collective, is it?
It's literally designed to download content from sites that don't allow downloads. It's not even remotely the same thing as a browser or other communication tool.
> It's literally designed to download content from sites that don't allow downloads
That's not per se illegal. First there are countries where it is not illegal to download copyright protected content for personal use. Second even in countries where this was illegal (but where it is by no means clear what the difference between "download in the browser" and "download in another tool" should be) Youtube contains content which is CC-BY licensed (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/user/RochusKeller) which can be legally downloaded and used.
> I don't understand the RIAA bit.
RIAA is no copyright collective (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copyright_collection_s...), but just an industry organization. In order to be able to represent the rights of the IP owners in court or in actions like the present one, the organization needs appropriate powers of attorney. This must also be provided for in the statutes. This is not the same as lobbying. If I was a representative of the other party, the first thing I would doubt is that.
>It's literally designed to download content from sites that don't allow downloads.
Any video you watch requires you to download it, the only difference from a browser is how it stores the file. And section 1201 does not outlaw tools used for circumventing copyright, it outlaws tools used to circumvent copyright protection.
> It's literally designed to download content from sites that don't allow downloads.
You can't simultaneously offer a video for people to watch and still "not allow downloads". What you actually mean is that they do not explicitly offer a downloading feature. That's true, but that's what the tool is for and it's not in itself illegal.
Did you actually read the README, or are you just spreading rumors? Because I did and have no idea what you're talking about. BTW the README can be found at https://gitlab.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl if anyone wants to see for themselves.
As for the test cases, this is what the article has to say about it:
> they are automated test cases where the test just downloads the first 10KB, which amounts to a couple of seconds at most. This is certainly fair use, but the project is fully functional without these test cases.
So what part of this article are you agreeing with? I doubt we read the same article.
I guess we’ll find out when the case goes through won’t we? From the takedown notice:
We note that the source code is described on GitHub as “a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites.”1
We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto.
> Well, consider that if Apple were an open platform, this default would be set by most "for free".
> If the platform invited the user to set a default, or was "biased towards their user's preferences", as most would select google, google would be the "natural default".
You almost make it sound like defaulting to Google without making people aware of the alternatives is “open” and unbiased.”
Please don't redefine privacy as "we know everything about you and we're going to exploit that information for profit but won't give it to anyone else except governments whatever their purpose may be because they only ever use it for a good cause." That's not what it is.
That's a ridiculously unprofitable business model, of course they don't but almost entirely because that idea is unsound and not at all practical.
When a hotel offers privacy for instance, they aren't saying they'll wear a blindfold to check you in - their data retention policy is identical - they're talking about privacy from others.
When a plane offers privacy in first class, they're not saying they'll shred your fight record after landing, it's privacy from others.
When uber is offering privacy, they're not saying you can anonymously book and crypto pay the amount, no, it's privacy from others - they know the same amount about you as any other user
I have a friend here in LA that does privacy centric medical services (hiv, drug rehab). The target demo is celebrities who are shying away from paparazzis and gossip columnists. He still has the customer list however
Websites are going to force users to click "allow."
That's a bit strong. A website can't force a user to anything. The point is that to use the feature nefariously without the user knowing it's happening is relatively easy to prevent by putting the feature behind a permissions flag. If the user actively wants a website to be able to make connections they can say yes.
If the user doesn't know then they ought to be saying no, but really they won't and they'll say yes if the warning isn't scary enough. The browser vendors could also do things like throttling connections or asking for permission again if things look too weird.
Most people I know just click "yes" on all popups until the website starts working. In between every other website asking for notification/location permissions and a huge pile of GDPR popups (which are actively hostile towards users that attempt to opt-out), we've managed to condition web users into routinely agreeing to give up their privacy and security. Hooray.
> Most people I know just click "yes" on all popups until the website starts working
This. Defaults matter. You cannot introduce a privacy sensitive feature just with a permission dialog box. You must expect that most users just click through, and continue to protect those "dumb" users.
I’m not convinced because many of those “legitimate websites” don’t have a very good track record of respecting user security and privacy. Given past events, I find it hard to believe that the ad industry or the entertainment industry or any other industry won’t abuse access to these APIs. To make it worse, if popular websites wants permission to use these highly-invasive APIs, users would have no choice but to cave in. This worries me a lot.
Even if you don’t consider bad intentions, the security implications are huge. Imagine if Zoom had used this feature. The security fiasco a few months back would’ve been made a whole lot worse.
The “legitimate websites” that disrespect privacy and security almost always do that in a way transparent to the user (ignoring the cookie prompts, but I don’t think that’s a fair comparison). For example, news websites could try and access my location info, but they don’t because there’s a permission prompt which would appear.
For this particular feature, there can be no meaningful transparency whatsoever. Permission to use TCP or UDP is very, very different from permission to access location info. Any user can easily imagine the possible consequences of allowing the latter, but the definitely not the former. Heck, no one can possibly know the actual consequences unless someone goes through the effort to reverse engineer websites using this feature.
This seems like FUD. How are the laws itself “excess and absurd” compared to rest of the democratic world? It’s also strange to assert Japan has “strong privacy laws” when the exact opposite is happening in this very article we’re discussing.
> In Japan, the person who committed the (sexual) crime can reliably sue you for ruining their reputation and win
Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon thing outside of Japan [1]. And to be fair, you can’t just put a blanket ban on defamation lawsuits because it’s not wrong to sue for defamation if the allegation of sexual misconduct is in fact false. I don’t believe the majority of them to be the case, but ultimately, it’s for the courts to decide.
> Stating actual plain facts about a person that harms their image on any public platform will land you in trouble, unless it’s something that’s clearly in the public interest to know
Whoa. This the whole point of having defamation laws. Would you rather live in a world where every embarrassing details about your life can be published online?
> Whoa. This the whole point of having defamation laws.
Defamation laws normally deal with disseminating false information, not embarrassing information. True statements cannot be defamatory in many/most legal systems, no matter how much they harm someone's reputation.
The topic was about Japanese defamation laws. Outside Japan, privacy laws would cover these cases.
Also note that facts that “harm someone's reputation” isn’t indicative of illegal or even immoral conduct. For example, having caught the COVID19 disease might harm one’s reputation, but it doesn’t make one a bad person however true it is.
That’s not the point of defamation laws. If someone assaults you and you post a video on twitter, most first world countries will use that as evidence against the person who assaulted you. In Japan, it’s perfectly legal to record someone, but making the fact that the person is dangerous and not in police custody will get you in trouble, and the person who assaulted you will use the video against you. Defamation is generally globally defined to be false statements made with the intent to harm someone’s reputation. In Japan, full context, factual representations are treated as just about as bad as a false claim.
So Japanese defamation laws were designed to facilitate criminals, is that what you're suggesting? There surely are many problems with the political and legal system in Japan, but I think it's beyond ridiculous to assert that the law was created with the intent to facilitate criminals. The most likely explanation is that it's designed to prevent people from exposing every enbarassing details about others. Do note that "embarrassing" doesn't mean "criminal" here.
> In Japan, it’s perfectly legal to record someone
Slightly off-topic, but I don't believe it's that simple. People do have to respect each other's privacy.
> but making the fact that the person is dangerous and not in police custody will get you in trouble, and the person who assaulted you will use the video against you.
Not all video evidence is actual proof that a crime has been committed. If it didn't lead to convictions, then it's not surprising that you'd get in trouble for disemminating it as actual proof. And let me remind you that the Japanese legal system is notorious for its startling high conviction rate.
Another issue I have with your assertion is that video evidence of crime is often disemminated by the Japanese media way before it reaches the courts [1][2]. Some of these are picked directly from social media. Yet no one ever got in trouble for it, contradicting your statement. So far, you've provided zero evidence that what you said is commonplace in Japan.
Not reading beyond your first paragraph because I clearly didn’t assert that it’s “designed to facilitate criminals.” That’s a bizarre claim. The talking down tone is also a little much. The problem is the law is merely broad enough to be misused by criminals. There are warnings about uploading road rage/煽り運転 videos from the government and media because the person committing the crime can use the videos against you for ruining their reputation/violating their privacy.
https://github.com/irssi/irssi/commits?author=GeertHauwaerts