I claim that the Terms of Service of YouTube are irrelevant for the purposes of this question. Since the default is "any copying is illegal", I will answer the contrapositive "why isn't using my browser to visit YouTube illegal?". This was the source of a lot of controversy in the early internet era, I recommend reading Chapter 3 of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture if you're interested in the history. Visiting any website requires, not only that it is temporarily copied and saved onto your hard drive, but also that every intermediate server through which the content is transmitted to you has a copy, and also that a copy can be displayed on the physical screen you use to view the media. Any "copying without permission" is infringement.Ĭopying is a necessary and pervasive part of typical internet usage. But if you want to access the material via You Tube, you have to do it in a way that is permitted, and You Tube says that you're not permitted to download. You might also directly contact the author of the work in question and negotiate a deal where you can directly acquire a license from the rights-owner. (b) with prior written permission from YouTube and, if applicable, theĪnd they don't expressly authorize ordinary download, you have to use their interface. Or any Content except: (a) as expressly authorized by the Service or Sell, license, alter, modify or otherwise use any part of the Service Specifically,Īccess, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, (The license terms changes over time – previously there were more license types). Content-consumers likewise are allowed to stream content using their interface, but not generally download. The TOS says (roughly) "when you upload stuff, you give permission for others to access your stuff using the You Tube interface". First, the author uploads his material to You Tube, because he has an account and the TOS associated with the account specifies the license that he grants to You Tube and the world – same thing with Stack Exchange. You are not allowed to make any copy of other people's stuff without permission. And, to clarify, I'm not asking about YouTube's TOS, but the overall legality of downloading music from YouTube in general.Īlthough you aren't interested in the TOS, you should be. I'm in the USA, so I'm looking for USA-specific copyright law. If anyone can provide case law or something to that effect, I'd really appreciate it. In that case, why is it illegal for me to download it to my computer to listen to later? YouTube pays royalties via ads, so by this logic, the stream I listen to is legal because the royalties have already been paid by YouTube.īut, what constitutes a stream? I can have a YouTube music video open in my browser, disconnect from the internet once it loads, and listen to it over and over provided I don't refresh the page. When people buy a CD or mp3, they are allowed to listen to it as much as they want, because the royalties have already been paid. If the act of watching a YouTube video creates a temporary download in my internet cache, why is it illegal to use an app that intercepts the YouTube API to download music videos to listen to later when I don't have internet?
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