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Russian YouTube-Ripping Site Wins In US Court (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader quotes TorrentFreak:
YouTube rippers are seen as the largest piracy threat to the music industry, and record labels are doing their best to shut them down. In 2017, YouTube-MP3, the world's largest ripping site at the time, shut down after being sued, and several other folded in response to increased legal uncertainty. Not all stream-ripping sites throw in the towel without a fight though. FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, owned by Russian developer Tofig Kurbanov, remained online despite being sued by several record labels last August....
According to the defense, the court has no jurisdiction over the matter. Only a small fraction of the visitors come from the US, and the site is managed entirely from Russia, it argued.... Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled on the matter. In a 14-page opinion, he clearly sides with the operator of the YouTube rippers. Kurbanov doesn't have to stand trial in the U.S. so the case was dismissed.
Billboard notes that the site was the 322nd most-visited web site in the world last year (for the 12 months ending in September, according to court documents) -- and that nearly 10 percent of the site's traffic -- 26.3 million visitors -- came from the U.S, including 500,000 from Virginia.
According to the defense, the court has no jurisdiction over the matter. Only a small fraction of the visitors come from the US, and the site is managed entirely from Russia, it argued.... Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled on the matter. In a 14-page opinion, he clearly sides with the operator of the YouTube rippers. Kurbanov doesn't have to stand trial in the U.S. so the case was dismissed.
Billboard notes that the site was the 322nd most-visited web site in the world last year (for the 12 months ending in September, according to court documents) -- and that nearly 10 percent of the site's traffic -- 26.3 million visitors -- came from the U.S, including 500,000 from Virginia.
Beaten by the formerly soviet russians.
The communists.
Corporatism != Free Market
... links to the rippers.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Basically every song in existence. Tons of TV shows and even movies. All for free.
Shutdown the sites? No problem, youtube-dl is infinitely better anyway.
The real problem is that Google shouldn't be hosting this content and making money off of it. If I tried to make my own YouTube, I'd be sued into oblivion. So whatever...as long as Google gets to get away with theft, I will take what they're giving out for free. Thanks!
A another nation has a great useful service online.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Youtube rips for non-public use are LEGAL around here. The law treats it like recording TV, which is also legal. If you are in a country with different laws that forbid Youtube ripping, then you may be breaking the law, but I'm not.
"rule otherwise allows other Empire Powers (China and Russia) to prosecute US citizens for things they do in the USA"
Well, they can. But if they want to enforce it they have to wait for you to step into their country (it's happened, and we've done it too) or come over here and enforce covertly (it's happened, and we've done it too) but these are typically reserved for enemies of the state (or dictator).
No, the real reason our own court correctly states it doesn't have jurisdiction over it is because this is America and people are lawyer happy and if our courts start hearing cases against foreigners in foreign lands, it will be a big waste of time and resources because the government (here) will have no intention of enforcing the judgement for cases brought by peons.
The real impact of this obvious outcome will be that US publishers will try to close off the US from the rest of the world -- our very own great firewall of the MAGA -- so they can keep their imaginary profits they would have gotten from people who will never pay. Or something like that.
That's what I do for audio, here's a great article on how to set this up on a Mac: https://medium.com/@kengroup24...
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Yea, on Linux Mint I use the gui frontend 'Youtube-DLG' then in advanced options I have it set to download best audio + best video and - - merge using the youtube-dl and ffmpeg backend.
I've used the command line youtube-dl but I love the gui front end, makes setting up a whole playlist of links for automation very simple.
Does Youtube block access from Russia? Of course not. So Youtube does biz in Russia that, by international treaty, must respect Russian laws.
Non sequitur. Youtube does what it does in the USA. A person who watches or rips Youtube in Russia does so according to Russian law. The people who operate the networks are the ones who do business in both countries (for the sake of argument), but governments so far had the good sense not to hold them responsible for other people's communication that they only carry over the borders.
If an American calls me and I tell them a dirty joke, I tell that joke here and they listen to it there. It is quite sad that more than a quarter of a century after the internet became available to the general public, so many people are still trying to equate communication with remote presence.
Man I wish this tool still worked.
You're right that the vast majority of musicians aren't represented by a major label. Millions of songs are available on MySpace free, legally.
The major labels did actually do what you suggested and did not post the music to YouTube. Did that mean people sought out independent artists? Nope, it just want they illegally posted it to YouTube. Apparently the vast majority of people only want major label music for whatever reason. There are millions and millions of freely available songs, nobody listens to them.
Maybe that's because the major label music is less likely to suck. Especially regarding production quality. The free music on MySpace and other places includes some very good artists and some very bad artists. I guess people don't want to look for the stuff they like. In particular, the major labels have very good producers working in state of the art studios. Apparently people like that, because they'd rather steal the 0.1% of music that's put out by major labels than listen to the 99.9% that is legally available for free.
Kidnapping foreign citizens from foreign airports is a foolish policy. It's likely to backfire. I hope our elected, accountable representatives can find the courage to check the power-drunk overreach of our judiciary.
If I were an executive in an American patastate corporation, I sure would be nervous about changing planes in any airport controlled by a Chinese ally...
Here in Sweden we're already forced to pay a fee on all storage media because we have the right to make a copy of some material for our own usage. Since that included cassette tapes before I assume doing so for music from YouTube may be fine. Before the law has been different for computer software. So there's that part where some private creation of additional copies are actually legal.
But then there's the aspect of quality. Good quality of the source material doesn't make poor music good and good music even at low quality may be enjoyable but personally I really only listen to music through YouTube mostly on the computer but sometimes on the phone and that's nice and I don't bother to rip it to download and keep it to play it again later. If I actually were to want to fetch a copy of my own I would try to find a FLAC or DSD or such copy anyway. By now we've got so good DACs and amps that may be noticable, and especially against some shittier low res videos on YouTube from music videos and such. So why if I actually wanted to download music without paying for it would I use the low quality YouTube offer? Because it's more legal/dangerous? "Easier"? Not sure about the alter if I have to find videos, copy url, paste url, click another link, shuffle tabs and what not ..
if our courts start hearing cases against foreigners in foreign lands, it will be a big waste of time and resources
Remind me again how many Russians who are in Russia were indicted by Mueller; around 24 isn't it?
Actual conversation between my wife and I:
Wife: Britney Spears has a show in Vegas now. I kinda want to see it.
Me, with a skeptical look on my face and a concerned tone of voice: Eh, I don't know. Do you think she's going to be nasty, doing all that over-sexualized stuff, dancing around half naked and crap?
Her: Well it IS Britney Spears, so I guess so.
Me: Sounds good! :)
"26.3 million visitors -- came from the U.S, including 500,000 from Virginia."
Not sure why the summary is even bringing up VA, but...
Virginia has a population of 8.47M, or 2.6% of the population of the U.S. 2.6% of 26.3M is 683800, so clearly Virginia isn't doing it's fair share.
Just another day in Paradise