YouTube-MP3 Ripper Creator Takes On Google 141
judgecorp writes "21-year old computer science student Philip Matesanz is ignoring a 'cease and desist' order from Google over his site YouTube-mp3.org, which rips audio tracks from videos hosted on YouTube. Instead, he has launched a public campaign against Google, arguing that German law allows what he is doing. Matesanz has an online petition."
Potential problem (Score:3, Interesting)
I see some trouble on the horizon, since his converter is using an .org domain. The expert assessments only concern German law, but the site is accessed by an international audience. Google might use this fact against him, but of course there is more danger.
Since the US has de facto already claimed legal jurisdiction over all people and companies whose domains are under US "control", even if the servers are located elsewhere and the sites are used by people from all over the world, he might face accusations for copyright infringement and an extradition request.
The TLD is under the jurisdiction of the USA (Score:2, Interesting)
As I understand, .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, etc., are TLDs under the jurisdiction of the USA. Therefore, he must follow the laws of the USA, even if his host is located in Germany. If he wants to claim that it's legal in Germany, then he needs to put his site on the .de TLD.
Even if his site was on the .de TLD, and it was legal in Germany, the fact that he is an individual taking on a Fortune 100 company means he will lose. GOOG probably has more lawyers on its payroll than the number of lawyers in all of Germany. In a Western country, its money that decides who will win in the courts.
As an aside, I snicker at the naivete of youth. An online petition, really? He might as well write his wish on a piece of paper, tie it to a balloon, and release it into the sky.
Re:Service? We don' need no steenking service (Score:5, Interesting)
This is sofa king lame.
You don't need a service to extract the audio.from a YouTube stream
While I have no objection to anyone doing this themselves for the convenience etc, I DO object to someone trying to extract $$$ from something that is not his .
You mean like Google making advertisement money off of songs being uploaded to Youtube as "movies" that are single static images, usually with the intent for Youtube MP3 Ripper sites to rip said songs to MP3 format?
I agree, totally unethical behavior and I object wholeheartedly.
Re:Why should Google care... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are videos with copyrighted material on YouTube which is allowed to be on YouTube (many artists/labels put music up themselves). That doesn't mean anyone is free to turn it into an mp3.
Bullshit. For example:
Aerosmith decides to play a show in a public park down the street from my house. Since I can hear the entire show from my back porch, I have every right in the world to place a tape recorder on my own property and record the public performance. Granted, it is likely still illegal to profit from said recording, but making it is decidedly not criminal.
The key phrase here, of course, is "public performance." Once you put something out on the public airwaves, where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has access, you effectively surrender your control over its distribution.
Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I have the right to record a song off the radio.. I have the right to record a tv show off of TV...
Why do I not have the right to record a show, or song off youtube?
What the RIAA is actually doing to combat this (Score:5, Interesting)
LMFAO did it, Iwrestledabearonce did it, as well as at least 30 others I saw. Unfortunately, since my dad is a mobile DJ, that's a problem because the same version goes straight to itunes and we play music videos on a rear projection screen during dances. So some idiotic pause in the music really ruins that. Just another example of them screwing over their prime customers to implement antipiracy.
Official Chrome Extension by YouTube does the same (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think Google objects to MP3 rips of the soundtracks of their videos - after all, YouTube offers an official Chrome extension that does the same:
YouTube Downloader: MP3 / HD Video Download [google.com] (Note that the developer of the extension is youtube.com)
I think they have a problem because the external service drives people away from the YouTube website. In any case, I can't see why Google would not have the right to simply stop serving Videos to the IP addresses of the servers of the download service. So in some sense, they were nice to send a letter asking him to stop.