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YouTube-MP3 Ripper Creator Takes On Google
judgecorp writes "21-year old computer science student Philip Matesanz is ignoring a 'cease and desist' order from Google over his site YouTube-mp3.org, which rips audio tracks from videos hosted on YouTube. Instead, he has launched a public campaign against Google, arguing that German law allows what he is doing. Matesanz has an online petition."
But does he not know that when it involves the internetz American law applies ? :) Just ask that British guy that faces extradition to the US for things that are legal in the UK.
Why would it matter to Youtube if somebody rips the sound track from a video? If it's an issue of unauthorized copies, then shouldn't the video with the unauthorized soundtrack on itin the first place be taken down?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I read the article and I really don't see what difference it should make to Google, since they have *NO* ability to even *know* whether or not a user might be ripping the sound track from a video in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's long been a well-known secret among technologically capable people (like you, dear reader) that it's very easy to download the video files for youtube videos. Extracting the audio is just another simple step away from that. Google has ignored such services in the past because they really don't care if people download these videos or the music on them. Sure, it might eat in to their revenues a little bit, but not much, since most people will just keep coming back to the site anyway.
The real issue here is that copyright holders (those big evil RIAA members) never realized how easy stripping music from youtube videos actually was. That's the only reason they let all their music go up on the site (albeit slathered with advertising and overlays.) Anytime someone draws attention to how easy getting the audio (or video) actually is, it makes copyright holders skittish. They think that this guy has somehow discovered some sort of technological loophole that allows him to download the files in a way others can't (he hasn't.) Google is probably under tremendous pressure to shut this guy down, and they'll do it just so that nobody starts asking questions about why it's so easy to do what he's doing anyway.
Better that one man takes the fall (and just shuts down his site) than that the whole world suffers losing unfettered access to youtube source files.
This is sofa king lame.
You don't need a service to extract the audio.from a YouTube stream
While I have no objection to anyone doing this themselves for the convenience etc, I DO object to someone trying to extract $$$ from something that is not his .
You mean like Google making advertisement money off of songs being uploaded to Youtube as "movies" that are single static images, usually with the intent for Youtube MP3 Ripper sites to rip said songs to MP3 format?
I agree, totally unethical behavior and I object wholeheartedly.
I have the right to record a song off the radio.. I have the right to record a tv show off of TV...
Why do I not have the right to record a show, or song off youtube?