Popular YouTube Downloader ‘YouTube-dl’ Taken Down From GitHub

Since it is not possible for legal reasons to download YouTube videos directly from the website, many users use third-party apps for this. Now the popular tool Youtube-dl has been taken offline following an application by the RIAA music association.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a US company that represents the rights of numerous companies in the music industry. The organization has issued a warning against the open-source project Youtube-dl and had it removed from GitHub. From the DMCA inquiry, it emerges that the RIAA accused the developers of developing the software only for downloading copyrighted works. In addition to the main project, some folks are said to have received a takedown request. The respective repositories can no longer be called up.

Youtube-dl’s code is used in many programs that can download clips from YouTube and convert them to various file formats. The RIAA believes that the software enables copyright infringement and that the tool is not legal. While it is possible to use Youtube-dl to download copyrighted music videos, the application can of course also be used to legally download works under different licenses. It is still unclear whether there will be a legal dispute in the case.

The tool still available on other platforms

Although Youtube-dl has now been removed from the official GitHub page, the code can currently still be found on many other platforms. For example, the project can be downloaded from the package managers of most Linux distributions. However, it is conceivable that the RIAA will soon have the program removed from these sources too. Since YouTube does not use direct copy protection, there will likely be alternatives in the future that users can then fall back on.