[cc-community] The big problem with the Spoon video and CC

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Fri Aug 24 10:55:01 EDT 2007


Fred Benenson wrote:
> I believe it's still possible to download the flash files from YouTube.
> While it's not a preferred format, it's better than nothing:
> 
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2390
> 
> The question is whether or not this is working around a TPM or just a
> "feature" of YouTube.

Well, I'm not a big YouTube user (and this is one of the reasons!), but
what I've seen of their site suggests that it is definitely intended as
a technical barrier to downloading the video files.

OTOH, presuming that it was the copyright owner who uploaded the files
to YouTube, the CC license restriction wasn't violated. ISTM, though,
that if someone else uploaded a CC file to YouTube, the license would be
violated.

Does the choice of a CC license legitimize such workarounds?

I think that if the YouTube software is regarded as a "DRM", that it
does not legalize the practice under US law -- the DMCA doesn't care
whether the use is legal or permitted by the license: all workarounds
for DRM are illegal -- indeed they are *criminal*.

So nice to live in the "land of the free". :-/

Cheers,
Terry



IANAL, TINLA, etc. Don't rely on legal advice from mailing lists!

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com



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