By Chathushka Perera
New York, USA (CWBN)_ Using third-party software to download YouTube (owned by Google) content has hit the main screen as a controversial aspect of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which implemented the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s treaties.
According to Section 1201 of the DMCA, is it only a copyright violation if a user downloads and then circumvents the given content. However, it has been unclear whether YouTube has been preventing this and YouTube-dl is right in the middle of this legal conundrum.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group, YouTube-dl is similar to “the videocassette recorders of decades past”, and is hosted by a community of software developers called GitHub.
The latter was forced to remove the source codes for YouTube-dl following a takedown notice that was issued by the Recording Industry Association of America in late October. However, this order was rescinded on the 16th of November owing to the support received by the EFF and developer defence fund established by GitHub.
The implications of the conflict are unlikely to be isolated to the entertainment industry, as with the movie industry’s restrictions preventing the decryption and copying of DVDs and Blu-Rays.
Nonetheless, the US Congress has in fact recognised the issue with 1201, where the Chairman of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, Senator Thom Tillis said in September that “the Subcommittee is holding a series of hearings on reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with an eye toward releasing draft legislation in December”.
