TL;DR: YouTube-dl DMCA


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The RIAA successfully applied a DMCA takedown to GitHub (Microsoft) for
an archivism program which downloads YouTube video/audio (although it
does target other services).

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md

I expect that YouTube will obfuscate the way it delivers content so
as to make the existing youtube-dl release (and other similar software)
nonfunctional (perhaps only for a time).

Curiously there was recently a bit of drama and then a fork (also
DMCA'd) over the problem of urgent youtube-dl pull requests being left
unreviewed. I have no proof for this instance, but I've always
maintained that controlled forks, or for a few thousand dollars the
right developers, could be made to drag their feet and damage FOSS
alternatives / etc; it might be cheaper than lawyers, FUD, lobbyists
etc.

The developer(s) are alive and its website still has a download, but
they're a hair away from being targeted more directly.

https://youtube-dl.org/

Sure there have been "protest forks" already, but that alone doesn't
mean anything unless efforts centre around one in particular.

Where other people will be focused on the code, I'm concerned about the
documentation. All of the wikis, pull requests, inline code-comments,
issues and their conversation have been purged.

(Not many people even think to clone a project's separate GitHub wiki
repository.)

But back to YouTube itself. The inability to download videos will
have an impact in that "inconvenient" videos can't so easily be kept,
fair-use commentated-upon, and (re-)uploaded. Everyday people wouldn't
be able to signal boost or contribute to a Streisand effect, making
videos (and people) easier to memoryhole.


GitHub is obviously untrustworthy for mirrors/forks. These are likely
to stay up longer:

https://source.netsyms.com/Mirrors/l1ving_youtube-dl
https://git.datahoarder.dev/whalehub/l1ving_youtube-dl
https://gitea.datahoarding.agency/ZenulAbidin/youtube-dl