GitHub removes 18 projects related to YouTube download library youtube-dl after RIAA sent a letter saying it enabled infringement
Main target of the takedown was the youtube-dl project, a Python library that had amassed more than 72k stars on GitHub and was used in many YouTube video ripping tools and services.
ZDNetCatalin Cimpanu
Context & Ripple Effects
The RIAA's fight against stream-ripping has escalated from websites to source code. Its earlier campaign took down services directly — the 2016 lawsuit against YouTube-MP3 ended in a settlement and permanent shutdown — but when a US court dismissed its suit against foreign ripping sites over lack of jurisdiction, the direct-site route stalled.
With youtube-dl, the industry group is instead pressing GitHub, the platform where the tools live: one letter removed the library itself (over 72k stars) and 18 projects built on top of it, taking enforcement upstream to the code host rather than the ripper.
First-order effects
youtube-dl and 18 downstream projects disappear from GitHub overnight, breaking every tool and service that depended on the library for YouTube downloading.
Second-order effects
Developers can respond by forking and re-hosting outside GitHub's reach, and GitHub itself faces pressure over how it adjudicates DMCA claims — pressure it answered weeks later when it [[a:960049|reinstated youtube-dl, raised its bar for takedown requests, and set up a $1M legal defense fund]] for open-source developers.
Third-order effects
If rights-holder letters keep targeting code hosts, platform policies — not courts — become the decisive battleground for what open-source tools survive, pushing hosts toward formalized review standards and funded developer defense rather than per-notice removals.
The trend: Copyright enforcement is shifting from suing ripping sites to pressuring the code platforms that host them, forcing those platforms to build their own counterweights.
Youtube-dl is a legitimate tool with a world of a lawful uses. Demanding its removal from Github is a disappointing and counterproductive move by the RIAA. https://github.com/...
youtube-dl was taken down by RIAA via DMCA. You know, the one that was archived here: https://web.archive.org/... and is still live here: https://pypi.org/... with hash e0ece0221b389c8054cb86661d8f9fb7408d8f4 dbc17cc413715dd61ad825133 just in case you wanted to check it for malwa…
The RIAA will stop at no cost, in one generation or the next, to ensure that their restrictive idea of music rights is enforced to the highest degree, no matter how much technology they must stifle to make it possible https://twitter.com/...
On the one hand, having those examples in the test suite was sloppy. On the other hand, my $1000 matched EFF donation goes into effect next Friday so that's good. Also, an important reminder than git is decentralized by design and this is all a game of whack-a-mole. https://twitt…
The strongest argument seems to be the fact that examples of usage in the documentation included copyright protected songs from major recording artists. Time to redo all the examples with Big Buck Bunny videos or something. https://twitter.com/...
Another reason to run your own source code repositories if you can using Gitea or GitLab and only use GitHub as a mirror for reach. e.g., Our canonical self-hosted repositories at Small Technology Foundation: https://source.small-tech.org/ Our GitHub mirror: https://github.com/..…
This is a huge misstep. I've been using youtube-dl for years to play media using my local player when I've had issues playing the content online. This includes when I was a student to fetch lectures for watching without great internet connectivity. https://twitter.com/...
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a DMCA with Github to have youtube-dl deleted. It is an excellent utility that can be used for archiving YouTube and many other platforms. The chilling effect would be devastating. https://github.com/...
I think it's worth understanding the difference between why a platform like Github would take things down under a “normal” DMCA takedown notice and under the RIAA letter over youtube-dl.
Important to remember that the responsibility for the decision to comply rests with Microsoft, which owns Github. Microsoft has been an enthusiastic member of the Copyright Cartel for a long, long time. https://twitter.com/...
So, besides the obvious “RIAA is doing stupid stuff again”, and the less obvious “github opted for the easy way out, gave the giant what he wanted, screw the little guy”... They didn't just take down youtube-dl, but every of its forks. Without notice, silently, I lost mine. https…
in case you missed it, GitHub has capitulated to a ridiculous request from the RIAA to remove the youtube-dl source, presumably leading to a whack-a-mole as they migrate? curious to see how pypi, ubuntu, homebrew all respond. https://twitter.com/...
RIAA blitz takes down 18 GitHub projects used for downloading YouTube videos Main target of the takedown was the youtube-dl project, a Python library that had amassed 72k stars on GitHub and was used in many YouTube video ripping tools and services. https://www.zdnet.com/... http…
Never thought I'd hear that name again! Feels like it's been over 10 years since one of the major subplots of the internet was them suing people for hundreds of thousands of dollars for up/down-loading a few songs (eg. https://www.wired.com/...) https://twitter.com/...
Do I know anyone at @Github? This is bullshit. We've used youtube-dl before for a project archiving activist videos about BLM/police brutality. What's next? Banning cURL? https://twitter.com/...
The RIAA has been spinning up their DMCA takedown abuse machine again, targeting: 1) Videos on Twitter with fleeting/fair use instances of music in the background 2) Twitch VODs 3) GitHub projects, but AFAICT you can't do a § 512 takedown notice for an alleged § 1201 violation
The RIAA just got GitHub to ban open source YouTube downloaders. They don't want anyone to share this code: mplayer $(echo -s " https://youtube.com/... $youtube_url | sed -n “/watch_fullscreen/s;.＊\(video_ id.\+\)&title.＊;\1;p")& fmt=22") Woops. https://github.com/...