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You will no longer find the source code for YouTube-DL, a popular tool that can be used to download YouTube videos, and for some of its forks and copies on GitHub. When you visit their pages, you will find a notice that says “[r]depositary [is] not available due to DMCA removal ”instead. This is because the Microsoft-owned code hosting platform removed them all after receiving a legal request from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer explained on Twitter that the letter was not exactly a DMCA takedown notice despite what GitHub posted on the now-empty source code pages. The association said in its letter that YouTube-DL violates section 1201 of the US copyright law and is therefore illegal in itself. He argued that the tool violates copyright law, because it is clearly intended to “circumvent technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube” and “reproduce and distribute proprietary music videos and sound recordings. [RIAA’s] member companies without authorization for such use. “
