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Another YouTube Conversion Site Clipped
Hodejo1 writes "[Tuesday] morning we learned that Google fired the first volley against YouTube conversion sites by blocking YouTube-MP3.org's servers from accessing its service and sending a letter threatening legal action. It looks like the fast growing Clip.dj also got the letter based on the note posted on the site: 'We're sorry to announce this, but Clip.dj has shut its service down for good.'"
It's okay. I've got a firefox plugin that'll do it for me.
We all pretty much saw it coming in the last story.
BREAKING NEWS: Third site may already be blocked! Fourth soon to follow?!
If they allow us to see their content, they have to send us the bits in some form. If they send us the bits in any form, we can capture them and convert them to another form. Shut down all conversion sites today and more will be up in a week. Or we will start using browser plugins, or local apps. It is not technically possible to share something digitally without it being able to be captured digitally. It's like using a flashlight and then complaining that the person you're shining it on is using the light to read by, when you only meant to use the light to see them.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Ok, so a site I hadn't heard of before Tuesday is now down, and so is another site I had not heard of before 2 minutes ago.
Majorgeeks has plenty of programs to grab the flash encoded video off youtube, and plenty of converters. I think they've even got some chromium based browsers on there that explicitly advertise that you can choose to download flash objects with a simple right-click or menu command.
I get that this is an attack on casual downloading off the Google-tubes, but it seems silly, ineffective, and that it might alienate some potential ad-clickers.
These sites are using content they do not own and did not produce to make money (whether through gullible fools paying membership fees or through advertising). They need to die, just like "private" torrent sites need to die. Free stuff is great. Selling stolen stuff (or selling tickets to the stolen market) - not so much.
Has to show some "good faith" in their attempts to stop people from recording music from their site. I'd be willing to bet that this is only a CYA move (sucks that they have to do so, but thats the world we live in)
Also watch out for some of the plugins that DL mp3s from youtube, my g/f had one that kept on delivering ads that were giving her computer mal-ware (or the plugin itself was installing it... but w/e)
... who gives a damn.
Yeah, but you are not their target.
You can indeed already hear the sound, see the video, and record it. Whether you do that by pointing a candybar phone at your screen and recording a dozen mjpeg videos or via a client-side plugin that converts things on-the-fly, doesn't matter.
What they're targeting are 3rd party sites that download the content, convert it, and serve up the converted result (most likely caching things in the interim to save CPU cycles).
You may still be the destination of that download, but you are no longer the sole entity (besides YouTube itself) involved.
Now, if they were to go after the client-side solutions (and I don't mean the add-ons that simply submit to a 3rd party server and serve up the result), that'd be different. Maybe they will after getting rid of the 3rd party servers.
I was enjoying YouTube secretly being the new Napster, but it looks like the cat's out of the bag now. It was better than torrents for finding obscure music. Of course there are still ways to use it as before, but I'll continue to keep them quiet.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Why did this get modded down? I came in here to say pretty much exactly the same thing.
Personally, I use Video DownloadHelper because it applies more generally than just to YouTube; But search the FF addons for "YouTube" and you'll see at least a dozen plugins that will let you download whatever the hell you want.
And one extension to download/convert stuff from Youtube for Google's Chrome browser (and the FOSS Chromium browser it's derived from) is even supplied by Google/Youtube itself.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
VLC->Media->Convert/Save. Done.
Can I light a sig ?
These sites are using content they do not own and did not produce to make money
Sounds exactly like Youtube.com
Disable Flash and enable their HTML5 option.
You'll see 95% "This video cannot be displayed" messages.
Message to Google: WebM is DEAD, get with the damn program already.
Everyone complains that DRM is keeping them from having what they want. And Those producing what people want, would like to be paid for what they produce.
And companies find they can use some GPL code to keep from having to develop their own bit of code, while people decry that that company isn't giving the source of their product back like the GPL requires etc. etc.
In the end it really comes down to some very basic things that are weakening in the 'moral' spirit of humans. People don't really question any more if they can do something, should they do it?
I can convert any video I choose into a file I can play anywhere any time on a number of machines, but if a friend wants to see it, why shouldn't I offer it to them as well? Or am I a dick for saying. Sorry man, I'll send you the dvd if you like?
Companies try to heap more intrenched DRM into things because they don't see anything working. Media assholes spout nonsense numbers about how much money they are losing, when if you did the math there is no possible way they could have made that much. etc etc.
Politicians pile crap into bills for their own good and when it fall apart they blame someone else for it not going through.
In every case, it's people who think because they are in a position to do something that they want to do, that they can simply do it without there being any consequences.
And we have this idea that's given to us through Hollywood and oodles of books that just one person can make a difference. Almost always that's applied to improving things. Freeing the slaves, ending a war or slaying a Sith. In movies where one person does something really wrong that messes things up for everyone. like destroying the world or creating a new world order, they are considered evil and the bad guy. But it's really just an amplification of the result of when many people decide to do a small bad thing instead of the right thing.
The thing is if you look at say the analysis of the Stock market crash of a few years ago, you will see time and again, the magic plan that made so many so much money worked just fine, till everyone started doing the same thing. Every win requires a loss, it's the order of balance in the world.
I could run on this for days but that's not what posting to something like this is about. I do hope someday people will start to realize that everyone can't have everything, and just because you don't have something, doesn't mean you're not going to have a worth while life.
Cheers.
DS.
When you look at many videos on YouTube they are often compressed to a lower quality than the original so ripping them seems to me a way to get VHS quality from something that originally was DVD quality.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
That's right. We're not waiting. FIVE sites will be blocked. You can count on it.
But the only internet available at my house is 3G with a five gigabyte limit. Or satellite. I can't even get dial-up. Often I can't even watch a video without downloading it first because the entire video doesn't buffer any more.
So yeah, I am honestly sorry that I can't support the websites that I love the way that I would like to. Start pushing high-speed access out to the rural US and then I'll gladly sit in front of your ads all day long. Until then though, I have to be a thief. :(
i've never even heard of these sites. i just use keepvid. not anymore because after mentioning them they will get a letter too. oops.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
sudo aptitude install youtube-dl
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?