YouTube tries to take-down FOSS Invidious

[kilésengati]

For those that don't know, Invidious is an alternative, free and open-source API for viewing YouTube videos without ads and what not. YouTube has been on a war-path with ad-blockers recently. I think Louis Rossmann does pretty well at giving his two cents to the situation:

YouTube™ Video: Youtube's war on adblockers continues, sends cease & desist to invidious.io - you know what to do 😉 

Views: 284,165

👉 https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/issues/3872 https://youtu.be/4Q3ZXQZZlcE https://youtu.be/OJPmbcU-Vzo https://youtu.be/aVG1WMJebg8 https://youtu.be/aLW8WEwhg5w https://youtu.be/WTfpyi1Vf1A 🔵...

Maybe SomeOrdinaryGamers, Mental Outlaw or others will release videos about this too, who knows.

Here is something interesting. The music industry tried something similar to the program youtube-dl a while back, but ultimately lost in court, and now go after the project's website's hoster. I'm no legal expert, but the way I understand the ruling in favour of youtube-dl was made since creating private security copies without re-distributing them is legal in Germany as long as no DRM is circumvented and YouTube as of now doesn't employ any DRM.

Now, I'm no legal expert, so I don't know the intricates, but going after a FOSS project is futile in principle. For every take-down there are a dozen forks - in particular with such prominent projects. This is not a threat or endorsement, just my observation and the way I see these corpos not living at the pulse of time.

What's evermore concerning is, that should YouTube and the other media corpos finally understand what FOSS is, could they end up going after their users?
Could there be a new Abmahnwelle looming?


What do you think of alternative YouTube players and APIs? Do you use them?

[Thermal Lance]

I think google created the problem themselves with the obscene amount of ads. The lenght, the unskippable ones and the fact that scammers advertise on Youtube. You literally get scam ads and by the time YouTube actually acts on it people might have fallen victim to it.

People are fed up of this ♥♥♥♥. And instead of doing the sensible thing and make the user experience better. They try to shoot down the other birds.

[Sir Seanicus, Esq.]

Youtube just gave Invidious free advertisement lol

[kilésengati]

Originally posted by Sir Seanicus, Esq.:

Youtube just gave Invidious free advertisement lol

Given how rabid YouTube has been lately, it might be best to seriously consider transitioning to fully-FOSS alternatives like PeerTube and Odysee. But given their peer-to-peer nature, I'm wary of them, since I'm in Germany.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

[pants]

I use FOSS alternatives to YouTube's apps on my devices, etc. Half of this is because the official apps suck and the website itself without browser extensions to actually make it a good experience sucks. If Google made their experience better nobody would even need alternatives.

And regards ads... If ads are intrusive, people will skip them. People will block them. All they have to do is make them a whatever experience and most people will whatever them into their whatever memory holes.

Then we just need advertisers to actually look at the real conversion rates vs. the cost of it and we might get slightly fewer ads because lol like coca cola for example notice any benefit from increased exposure etc

[LQIM]

We do a little repo cloning, a small amount of archival, a tiny amount hosting my own instance

[LQIM]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

What "YouTube" content?

[Uncle Sam]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

I think google created the problem themselves with the obscene amount of ads. The lenght, the unskippable ones and the fact that scammers advertise on Youtube. You literally get scam ads and by the time YouTube actually acts on it people might have fallen victim to it.

People are fed up of this ♥♥♥♥. And instead of doing the sensible thing and make the user experience better. They try to shoot down the other birds.

Corporations behaving like corporations, aka business as usual. Still wonder when Alphabet Corporation aka Google will get the message that given how ads work atm, it needs a massive overhaul due how annoying they can be, and as you said even promote scammers through ads.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

Blocking invasive ads isn't 'stealing content' considering the content on YouTube is 90% from individuals and not YouTube.

[kilésengati]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

Blocking invasive ads isn't 'stealing content' considering the content on YouTube is 90% from individuals and not YouTube.

Whether ad-blocking is seen as piracy or a right to privacy is likely left to the courts. But each can have their own opinion.

To my knowledge, you still can't watch premium content with Invidious, and that's fine.

[Uncle Sam]

As per FOSS API in regards to Youtube had been using them for years, since the app Youtube provides is bad overall, and is in need of a full rework / overhaul.
Thanks for the info @OP.

It's similar to what Reddit CEO is doing atm trying ot kill all third party FOSS API's, which is leading to a two day protest over many of the big multi-millions users subreddits over there AFAIK.

YouTube™ Video: We Have To Talk About The Reddit Blackout... 

Views: 561,532

Hello guys and gals, it's me Mutahar again! This time we take a look at Reddit's recent blackout over it's controversial API changes.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Why would YouTube not be against stealing it's content?

Blocking invasive ads isn't 'stealing content' considering the content on YouTube is 90% from individuals and not YouTube.

It is still theft. The ads are the admission price to the content. Same thing as if you sneak into a second movie at a multiplex theater. But you will never admit that.

[LQIM]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Blocking invasive ads isn't 'stealing content' considering the content on YouTube is 90% from individuals and not YouTube.

It is still theft. The ads are the admission price to the content. Same thing as if you sneak into a second movie at a multiplex theater. But you will never admit that.

lol

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

think i counted 2 15 second ads every 5 minutes last time tried to watch a movie there

[Kamiyama]

This is all interesting because I'm curious what exactly is the trigger that causes a mass exodus from one platform to another?

I experienced part of the Myspace to Facebook exodus. I used Myspace back in the old days when it was cool and everyone used it. But then it fell out of favor and everyone switched to Facebook. I never signed up for Facebook and I just deleted my Myspace. Haven't touched social media since. I didn't like the idea of employers using it to spy on you.

But what was it that caused that? Did someone really influential lead the charge? Did Myspace do something to piss off everyone?

I've been watching Youtube antagonize its creators for years now. They've banned people, demonetized people, take down videos, spam people with ads, and now they're attacking ad-blockers.

Where is the line in the sand that causes the next exodus?