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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.
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
I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue once you have recorded it.
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 ?
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.
You sum it up pretty nicely - but the point that you don't make is, this: Those conversion sites are monetizing the process, in one fashion or another. While it might be alright for you and I to take advantage of Youtube, or any other site, for our own personal use, it is NOT ALRIGHT for another corporation to horn in on the money to be made.
Those sites might do better if they were using Google ads on their sites, in a manner that didn't violate Google's policies. Might. If Google were making a penny or two at the same time the conversion site made a penny or three, they might get along.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue while you are downloading it.
FTFY.
If they were giving Google free ad space on their sites, they would probably still be up. Instead, they're getting paid to host ads while giving people access to Google's stuff. Google doesn't care about the brower plugins, because most people go to the youtube page to use the plugin.
Just my .02.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Fucking dipshit this is the one I use.
Why would you mention it?
FUCK
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)
Eh, plugins aren't needed. I showed my teen and tween nieces and nephews how to record Youtube videos into Audacity using their sound cards' What-U-Hear feature (seems to be a feature of Creative cards, not sure about other brands), and save them as mp3 files.
They learned fast, and have since passed that information on to their friends, who will probably pass it on to their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.
I also showed them the UnPlug plugin for Firefox for when they want to save the videos in their original flv or mp4 form locally.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't think they have any real grasp against services like savetu.be. As long as it's retreiveable by the user I can rip it.
Note, savetu.be is only for videos, since I believe that actively wanting to rip the audio of a youtube video is sadistic mazochism.
-- no sig today
Oh good, search engine company is shutting down websites that are downloading music from the video website they own. I see nothing wrong with that, let me go buy a phone the search engine company makes the OS for because I'm sure they'll never use it against me....
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Note that MP3 degrades very quickly when you tandem encode.
The basic idea behind MP3 is to add noise where most or all of it will fall below masking thresholds, so either you can't hear the degradation, or you can't hear it very much. When you tandem encode (feed that through a decoder and back into an encoder), you're adding noise again, most likely pushing it well past the masking thresholds. The resulting file, all else equal, will sound quite a bit more than twice as bad as encoding only once.
(This is ignoring other artifacts you're introducing, e.g. most likely a bunch of added digital clipping and the resulting aliasing if the original was anywhere near 0dBFS.)
Short version: if you're going to tandem encode, which you shouldn't, you might as well set the coder to 320kbit to minimize the damage.
sudo aptitude install youtube-dl
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