'youtube-dl' hosting provider held liable for copyright infringement
In a lawsuit filed by Sony Entertainment and three other major record companies against Uberspace, the provider that hosted
Court Rejects Appeal of Youtube-dl Hosting Provider 'Uberspace' * TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/court-rejects-appeal-of-youtube-dl-hosting-provider-uberspace-241127-1/
The music industry has been hostile towards youtube-dl for years, and in 2020 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) requested that the youtube-dl repository on GitHub be removed.
GitHub removes YouTube video downloader repository at the request of music industry groups - GIGAZINE
The removal of youtube-dl reportedly infuriated GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and with his full support, along with the backing of digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and a tailwind from internet opinion, the youtube-dl repository was reinstated .
Still, the music industry has shifted its focus, and in 2022, Sony Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against German company Uberspace, the hosting provider for youtube-dl.
YouTube video downloader 'youtube-dl' hosting company sued by world's three major record companies - GIGAZINE
Litigation in Germany is playing out in favor of the music industry: in 2023, the Hamburg Regional Court ruled in favor of the music industry's argument that youtube-dl facilitates copyright infringement by circumventing YouTube's technical protection measures, and that hosting this type of streaming ripping software is illegal.
Uberspace appealed, but the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg upheld the lower court's decision and dismissed the appeal.
While the verdict has not yet been made public, the German Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI) declared victory on November 26, 2024, saying in a statement : 'The BVMI welcomes the ruling of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (Hamburg Higher Regional Court) which dismissed the defendant's appeal in its entirety. This confirms the district court's ruling requiring the defendant not to offer the stream-ripping software youtube-dl and also recognizes its liability for damages.'
Uberspace said in response to the ruling that it is considering further appeals, though no final decision has been made yet. Uberspace founder Jonas Pasche previously told TorrentFreak, a news blog that specializes in information about copyright infringement and digital rights, that it plans to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
'If this ruling stands, it will become increasingly likely that hosting providers will be able to block users without a court ruling if they receive a complaint, even if the complaint is perfectly legitimate,' Pasche said in a statement at the time.
As mentioned above, youtube-dl is still hosted on GitHub at the time of writing, and it is unclear whether the record companies that won against Uberspace in the German court case will go to court in the United States to sue GitHub.
TorrentFreak said, 'GitHub has concluded that the youtube-dl code does not violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),' making it unlikely that GitHub will take any action without the involvement of a U.S. court.
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in Software, Posted by log1l_ks