Automating Youtube to Mediagoblin upload ?

10 réponses [Dernière contribution]
hack and hack
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/02/2015

Hi,

I thought it would be nice to have a way to automate several steps (maybe with a script):
1/ download from youtube
2/ upload to a specified Mediagoblin instance

Is this doable?
It is better than a plain Youtube link
(even if slower, but so what. It's an incentive to share only the best stuff).

Chris

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/23/2011

You better watch out!

That's called 'sideloading' and the MPAA has gone after people for it *with money operating legitimate companies*. And those companies/people lost. Look up Michael Robertson and mp3tunes (you may remember him from mp3.com and/or Lindows/Linspire).

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

Indeed, don't do this unless you've been authorized to distribute the video, i.e. a license permitting sharing has been indicated. Last time I checked, YouTube supports indicating CC BY as the license of the video, so if you do make such a script, you should look for that and only mirror videos which have indicated that license.

Another thing: if you do this, I think you should probably do so on your own MediaGoblin instance, to avoid slowing down the public ones run by other people.

tomlukeywood
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/05/2014

as long as you make sure the videos are licensed in a way that allows you to distribute them it would be a awesome idea!

Chris

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/23/2011

That's not good enough. It's the feature that seems to constitute the problem. Any feature that lets the user download from a another server by entering a URL seams to be considered by the legal system as an "inducement to infringe". Simply not advertising of copyright content for which one doesn't have permission isn't enough to be considered "not inducing". At least that's what it seems they've managed to sell in the jury in the mp3tunes case. Even testing out ones products using copyright-protected content where one does not have permission appears to be enough to draw the conclusion that the company has an intent to "induce infringement".

Now I don't agree with the idea that the government should be permitted to punish a company for such acts. We are suppose to have something called free speech. And certainly copyright is a political thing so should all the more enjoy the protections of the constitution. Yet the law doesn't agree in the United States and at least one country in Europe. I can think of cases in the United States where companies or individuals statements about copyright were used against them even if they didn't themselves violate copyright. A Tor exit operator was held liable for enabling a user to violate the law for doing little more than merely stating publicly they didn't care in response to a particular illegal activity. As far as I know he didn't even say he thought that illegal activity should be legal! Humorously it is not illegal in this country to operate an exit node, so ultimately it was his speech that was illegal.

The legal world is a scary place.

tomlukeywood
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/05/2014

i think i should of said
make sure the videos are already licensed by the original owner in a way that lets you copy them

Chris

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/23/2011

It seems like a feature with the ability to check the license before downloading would be sufficient to stop the 'induce' argument in its tracks, but I'd not want to be the test case. I could easily see the industry coming back and saying 'our copyright content is listed under licenses for which we did not authorize and for which the check is obviously useless and there the company/project is still inducing copyright infringement'... but anyway...

The courts have shown a willingness to accept absurd reaches and ignore logic to protect this industry.

Copyright in any other context is illegal and is morally reprehensible short of copyleft licenses. Unlike regular copyright enforcement nobody is being thrown in jail or having violence used against them in the case of copyleft licenses. The only cases where its really used is against companies and in these situations I'm a little more hard pressed to see it as violence. Mostly because it impacts large corporations for which I think some level of regulation is acceptable as the price of admission to the rights these companies get-or that of those behind these companies. Used against smaller companies and individuals though I would find it morally wrong.

tomlukeywood
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/05/2014

so i think it would be best to have a decentralized program
were each user downloads a bit of the data

if you can get more than 5000 people to be a part of it it would be hard to prosecute any one person

Chris

I am a member!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/23/2011

While it might be unlikely for any significant number of people to be prosecuted and thus reducing the risk of any one person I don't think it'll stop them from making an example of someone. Just look at the torrent situation. The risk from the entertainment industry and government by those infringing others copyrights is insignificant and yet a good chunk of people are taking precautions like paying for commercial VPN services, switching to other legal options, and so on. Not because there is any real threat, but because they're incapable of evaluating the real risks of continuing as they were. The risk of being prosecuted is less than .00001% and even if one is targeted by those in the entertainment industry in a civil action the out-of-court settlements is likely to be under $1000. But even there it is often as low as $20. And certainly no more than several thousand in even the worst cases (criminal cases are another issue and those who are running the platforms people are using to infringe). Most people's lives won't be impacted in any significant way and it's not in the financial interests of these people to comply with abiding by copyright or even evading civil lawsuits by hiding behind privacy friendly proxy services. There are good reasons to use privacy friendly services and software like privacy friendly VPN services and Tor. However I'm less convinced that evading the entertainment industry is a wise financial or strategic move for those infringing copyrights.

I'm also going to point out something else. I've been involved in similar types of civil lawsuits (patent related, not copyright, but close enough to get an idea). I have a sound idea of what you'll lose in such cases. Ultimately the costs will most likely be the result of lawyer costs and not the result of the settlement. The goal is to settle quickly because paying the lawyer is going to become the biggest factor. Not the ultimate amount you settle on. The lawyer might cost a few thousand, but you'll probably settle out of court for under $1000. If you try and haggle over it you'll probably just end up paying more.

Now what happens if you take it to trial? It could end up costing millions in legal fees depending on the situation. Going to trial almost never happens in any kind of case. Civil or criminal. Most people can't afford it. And those who can often lose everything if they do.

hack and hack
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/02/2015

I've made several assumptions:
1/ I thought that some Mediagoblin instances are big enough to partly replace Youtube. seems I was wrong. The generated traffic from opening the link could be quite heavy indeed.
2/ I need some more time to really understand your answers in detail (thanks btw), but the first question that comes to mind is:
isn't the act of uploading to Youtube already an act of sideloading?

I want to specify that the plan wasn't to make massive migrations to some Mediagoblin instance(s), but a decently limited number of songs for example, which are most likely heavily copyrighted anyway.

After all, what's the difference between uploading the latest hit song that I got somewhere on the web (or from a CD), and sideloading it from Youtube?

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

Most of the time, people who upload music videos and other videos that focus on copyrighted music are in violation of copyright, regardless of where they upload it to. It's just that so many people do it that the copyright industry can't realistically get rid of them. So instead, they've mostly settled with a system YouTube has in place to let them put ads on the videos.