Another YouTube Conversion Site Clipped 94
Hodejo1 writes "[Tuesday] morning we learned that Google fired the first volley against YouTube conversion sites by blocking YouTube-MP3.org's servers from accessing its service and sending a letter threatening legal action. It looks like the fast growing Clip.dj also got the letter based on the note posted on the site: 'We're sorry to announce this, but Clip.dj has shut its service down for good.'"
That's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
It's okay. I've got a firefox plugin that'll do it for me.
Re:That's okay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Much worse... you'd either be storing raw PCM or you'd be re-encoding. .flv or .mp4 file.
Better to get the mp3 or aac stream from the
ffmpeg -i zomg_justin_bieber_baby_baby.flv -codec copy zomg_justin_bieber_baby_baby.mp3
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ffmpeg -i zomg_justin_bieber_baby_baby.flv -codec copy zomg_justin_bieber_baby_baby.mp3
That's OK, I would rather shoot myself than listen to a Justin Bieber song. Although a compressed version of the song may make it tolerable.
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As the result of YouTube mp3 rips is either 128kbps cbr mp3 or 112kbps aac I'd say that everybody is pretty much better of without those pests.
Seriously, only a person that thinks a juke box is an app would be ok with that kind of sound.
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It's okay, I have tcpdump.
Or, It's okay, I have coaxial network cable, a multimeter and a quick eye.
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I know butterflies!
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But YOU are not their target (yet) (Score:1, Redundant)
Yeah, but you are not their target.
You can indeed already hear the sound, see the video, and record it. Whether you do that by pointing a candybar phone at your screen and recording a dozen mjpeg videos or via a client-side plugin that converts things on-the-fly, doesn't matter.
What they're targeting are 3rd party sites that download the content, convert it, and serve up the converted result (most likely caching things in the interim to save CPU cycles).
You may still be the destination of that download, bu
Re:But YOU are not their target (yet) (Score:4, Interesting)
You sum it up pretty nicely - but the point that you don't make is, this: Those conversion sites are monetizing the process, in one fashion or another. While it might be alright for you and I to take advantage of Youtube, or any other site, for our own personal use, it is NOT ALRIGHT for another corporation to horn in on the money to be made.
Those sites might do better if they were using Google ads on their sites, in a manner that didn't violate Google's policies. Might. If Google were making a penny or two at the same time the conversion site made a penny or three, they might get along.
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I don't think they have any real grasp against services like savetu.be [savetu.be]. As long as it's retreiveable by the user I can rip it.
Note, savetu.be is only for videos, since I believe that actively wanting to rip the audio of a youtube video is sadistic mazochism.
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Re:That's okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I use Video DownloadHelper because it applies more generally than just to YouTube; But search the FF addons for "YouTube" and you'll see at least a dozen plugins that will let you download whatever the hell you want. Some even transcode it for you on the fly, for those who can't bother with trying to figure out what to do with a FLV or MKV file.
Give it up, Google - If I can see (or hear) it, I already have a copy. I thought you understood that better than the Big Media morons.
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What is with all these people that have so completely swallowed the Google Koolaid? Google, just like the 'Big Media morons', is a business, existing to make a profit. The way they make a profit is by selling ads. People downloading content off their site means they are visiting their site less often, which means lower ad revenue. Google may not give a crap if you (or they) impact the revenue of content producers, but they sure as hell care if you impact their revenue. You can expect Google to fight
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If I bother to extract the audio from a YouTube video to an MP3, I do so for exactly one reason - To listen to it in my car.
I don't have a live net connection in my car; and even if I did, I couldn't realistically (never mind "safely") surf over to YouTube to pick out the next track I want to hear.
So whether I forgo listening, or rip it to an offline MP3, Google sees exactly the same
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And I'm sure there's not a single person in the world who would view/listen/whatever to something they downloaded instead of visiting the youtube website. Not a single one, not even once.
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I'll bet many of those intelligent individuals realize that once you let someone download your stuff you lose your ability to collect ad revenue for that person's use of your site.
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I don't think that has anything to do with it, aside form the RIAA probably screaming bloody murder.
Being able to download the videos *adds* value to youtube, even if it's not in the form of ad revenue. Which matters more because: Google owns youtube.
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How does it add value, if not in the form of ad revenue? The ad revenue is the only value YouTube has (to Google).
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knowing you can find the video you want on youtube, even if the purpose is to download it = reason to use youtube.
Otherwise people will simply use another video source with which they can download the video from.
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You are assuming that site A and site B are equivalent in every way except for the ability to download videos. In other words, if both sites allowed/disallowed downloads you would decide which to use by flipping a coin. Exactly what site is this other than YouTube?
Even if such an alternate site existed, it must get revenue from somewhere, it costs a whole lot of money to run YouTube. So where is this alternate site getting revenue? If it charges users, then it is no longer equivalent to YouTube. If i
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goodwill. It is an asset that is actually on P&L statements. it's kind of a bitbucket for corporate image, brand value, etc. In this case it's value is in the fact that by making the service not user hostile, they are preventing a "nicer" service from displacing them in the market, thus you will visit again, not for the same video, but for different videos, each time you visit they get an ad hit.
Indirectly, yes it is Advertisement Revenue, since that's the only thing Google really monetizes, but it i
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Uh, no. Being valuable to you means absolutely nothing, unless that 'value' to you translates into more income for them.
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Chrome, Chromium, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
Why did this get modded down? I came in here to say pretty much exactly the same thing.
Personally, I use Video DownloadHelper because it applies more generally than just to YouTube; But search the FF addons for "YouTube" and you'll see at least a dozen plugins that will let you download whatever the hell you want.
And one extension [google.com] to download/convert stuff from Youtube for Google's Chrome browser (and the FOSS Chromium browser it's derived from) is even supplied by Google/Youtube itself.
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No it isn't. That extension claims to be from Google, but it's not. If it were, it would have a tick before the "from youtube.com" and "G from Google" at the top of the description panel. It doesn't, so the author is fraudulently claiming to be legitimate when it isn't.
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Give it up, Google - If I can see (or hear) it, I already have a copy. I thought you understood that better than the Big Media morons.
Google: Big. Youtube: Media.
Are you sure that Google isn't Big Media?
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Give it up, Google - If I can see (or hear) it, I already have a copy. I thought you understood that better than the Big Media morons.
Google understands that. They also understand that just because you can make a copy doesn't mean you are legally allowed to make a copy.
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I think you'll find that Big Media morons and Big Data morons are both mostly morons at the end of the day. Look past the age and the sneakers and you'll find no meaningful difference. Spineless is spineless, shallow is shallow, greed is greed.
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It's okay. I've got a firefox plugin that'll do it for me.
Do you really think they don't know this? Do you really think they don't know of the alternatives?
They have to do their due diligence. These sites make the process of ripping music from videos TOO easy. Pretty much any other method requires at minimum installation of third-party software.
So these sites do three things that require Google to take action. They cut into the bottom line, they violate the Terms of Service, and they potentially put Google at legal risk.
For example search Billy Joels - W
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And if that plugin gets popular enough, they will request it to be taken down too! Google aren't stupid -- they are perfectly capable of protecting their content if their lawyers want it. For example, it is basically impossible to automate search queries because Google really hates it when you using their search engine but are not exposed to their sponsored results. They have very sophisticated means of determining when it is likey that a user is a bot and will then serve up an annoying captcha. They will d
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I do believe I just failed to make any sense. D'oh.
What I actually meant was, "Google is good at finding bots, but doesn't mind flagging people as bots." Certainly it thinks I'm a bot sometimes, and others I know have had the same experience.
Next time, I'll wait a bit longer and read what i wrote before hitting submit ;-)
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I just watch it on youtube then hum it to myself thereafter...Google claimed they sent my brain a letter but my brain claims it never read it
When are they going to learn? (Score:5, Interesting)
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What you say is true TODAY, and may continue be true for a while. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it will always be true. When it's only possible to boot cryptographically signed "secure" OSs, and only for a few "trusted" OSs that will not allow you to run such software, it will no longer be possible without hardware mods to your computer that most people are not able to do. They ARE working on a whole "trusted path" through the entire OS to your display device, with the final decryption bein
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how many people are succesfully playing BluRay discs on Linux machines?
Practically no one. However, if you ask how many play downloaded or sneaker-net-shared BluRay rips, that is a much higher number. Content protection is pretty much worthless as long as mass file sharing is easy.
Every little step is only a little step. Every little step can be circumvented. But the walls ARE closing in and have been for decades. Don't think it won't continue, and get harder and harder.
You are completely right.
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personally i don't bother with blueray in any form. Most people these days have a dvd drive on a computer but how may have a blueray drive? I think its more a financial than technical barrier.
Honestly who needs blueray when dvd is more than good enough and when it is on a computer even dvd quality is just icing. youtube is successful not for its high fidelity but its range of stuff available on most subjects.
I'm old enough to have recorded the chart show in mono on a radio cassette. Sure there was a bit
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Honestly who needs blueray when dvd is more than good enough and when it is on a computer even dvd quality is just icing.
I could not disagree more. The low quality of DVD distracts from watching the movie. The resolution itself is bad enough, but the encoding artifacts are extra annoying.
With an analog TV you have a bit of noise to hide the problems, but there is no such "luck" on modern TV sets.
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got to admit i dislike encoding artifacts but i've only really seen it on sky broadcasts as they are too cheap to apply a decent bitrate.
I'm not saying there is no difference in quality, there most certainly is but most people accept some defects and if you think DVD can be bad did you ever watch VHS? that is a huge difference but people still collected their video cassettes as it was the best available option. People did transfer to DVD preferring to buy in that format while tapes got old and wouldn't pla
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Banding, in areas with subtle colour changes, the compression only assigns a few colours, and so what should be a smooth sky with shades of blue becomes a bunch of areas with specific blue colours. The same thing also happens with explosions, because a DVD just cannot deliver the instantaneous bandwidth that a good explosion requires, even for a few seconds (the DVD production company cannot assume that the DVD reader can read at x2 or higher).
"Sticky pixels" where the compression algorithm turns an area wi
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I rip all movies I own. I simply prefer the experience of not having to watch trailers, FBI warnings, etc.
The last time my wife rented a movie and popped it into the DVD player, she was shocked that she had to watch trailers and crap...
I thought it was funny. She didn't want to wait for me to rip it but to be honest by the time the movie actually started I could have finished ripping it.
-nB
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I think it's more a question of how many walls have to go up before people give up. I know a few people who started to buy via iTunes once their P2P services got shut down. Not that YouTube is making a legitimate service for what these sites are doing but it will throw some people into buying legitimate copies of works that they were using these sites for if a legitimate copy is available.
Again, throw up enough walls and people will see spending a buck a track as being worth it.
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An additional part of this argument: if they allow us to see/hear their content, they have to send either sound waves and/or light waves to our eyes and ears. Which means they have to put those sounds and light in meatspace, where they can be recorded by readily available sound recorders and cameras.
They're fighting a battle they cannot win without breaking the laws of physics or rewiring everybody's brain.
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If they allow us to see their content, they have to send us the bits in some form. If they send us the bits in any form, we can capture them and convert them to another form.
Do you really think Google doesn't get this? I'd look a little harder to understand the reasoning.
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I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue once you have recorded it.
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I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue while you are downloading it.
FTFY.
If they were giving Google free ad space on their sites, they would probably still be up. Instead, they're getting paid to host ads while giving people access to Google's stuff. Google doesn't care about the brower plugins, because most people go to the youtube page to use the plugin.
Just my .02.
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Has to show some "good faith" in their attempts to stop people from recording music from their site. I'd be willing to bet that this is only a CYA move (sucks that they have to do so, but thats the world we live in)
Also watch out for some of the plugins that DL mp3s from youtube, my g/f had one that kept on delivering ads that were giving her computer mal-ware (or the plugin itself was installing it... but w/e)
Eh, plugins aren't needed. I showed my teen and tween nieces and nephews how to record Youtube videos into Audacity using their sound cards' What-U-Hear feature (seems to be a feature of Creative cards, not sure about other brands), and save them as mp3 files.
They learned fast, and have since passed that information on to their friends, who will probably pass it on to their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.
I also showed them the UnPlug plugin for Firefox for when they want to save the videos in the
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Note that MP3 degrades very quickly when you tandem encode.
The basic idea behind MP3 is to add noise where most or all of it will fall below masking thresholds, so either you can't hear the degradation, or you can't hear it very much. When you tandem encode (feed that through a decoder and back into an encoder), you're adding noise again, most likely pushing it well past the masking thresholds. The resulting file, all else equal, will sound quite a bit more than twice as bad as encoding only once.
(This is
End of the new Napster :-( (Score:2)
I was enjoying YouTube secretly being the new Napster, but it looks like the cat's out of the bag now. It was better than torrents for finding obscure music. Of course there are still ways to use it as before, but I'll continue to keep them quiet.
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The secret is to buy iTunes match. Put in sucky quality suck, match it, delete it, then download Apple's high quality version. Is it lossless? No, but it's better. And it's only $25, and you can keep everything you download after the year is up.
VLC (Score:2)
All part of the problem a lack of balance. (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone complains that DRM is keeping them from having what they want. And Those producing what people want, would like to be paid for what they produce.
And companies find they can use some GPL code to keep from having to develop their own bit of code, while people decry that that company isn't giving the source of their product back like the GPL requires etc. etc.
In the end it really comes down to some very basic things that are weakening in the 'moral' spirit of humans. People don't really question any more if they can do something, should they do it?
I can convert any video I choose into a file I can play anywhere any time on a number of machines, but if a friend wants to see it, why shouldn't I offer it to them as well? Or am I a dick for saying. Sorry man, I'll send you the dvd if you like?
Companies try to heap more intrenched DRM into things because they don't see anything working. Media assholes spout nonsense numbers about how much money they are losing, when if you did the math there is no possible way they could have made that much. etc etc.
Politicians pile crap into bills for their own good and when it fall apart they blame someone else for it not going through.
In every case, it's people who think because they are in a position to do something that they want to do, that they can simply do it without there being any consequences.
And we have this idea that's given to us through Hollywood and oodles of books that just one person can make a difference. Almost always that's applied to improving things. Freeing the slaves, ending a war or slaying a Sith. In movies where one person does something really wrong that messes things up for everyone. like destroying the world or creating a new world order, they are considered evil and the bad guy. But it's really just an amplification of the result of when many people decide to do a small bad thing instead of the right thing.
The thing is if you look at say the analysis of the Stock market crash of a few years ago, you will see time and again, the magic plan that made so many so much money worked just fine, till everyone started doing the same thing. Every win requires a loss, it's the order of balance in the world.
I could run on this for days but that's not what posting to something like this is about. I do hope someday people will start to realize that everyone can't have everything, and just because you don't have something, doesn't mean you're not going to have a worth while life.
Cheers.
DS.
And the problem is? (Score:2)
When you look at many videos on YouTube they are often compressed to a lower quality than the original so ripping them seems to me a way to get VHS quality from something that originally was DVD quality.
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Fucking dipshit this is the one I use.
Why would you mention it?
FUCK
You can (Score:2)