Is downloading videos from youtube illegal?

[SHENGTON]

Is downloading videos from youtube illegal?

Here in this forum is it illegal if someone ask if there's a software where he can download videos in Youtube?

[Broni]

Officially, according to YouTube (http://youtube.com/t/terms) IT IS:

4. General Use of the Website -- Permissions and Restrictions

YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Website as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:

A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Website, including but not limited to User Submissions (defined below), without YouTube's prior written authorization.

B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Website, including but not limited to YouTube's Embeddable Player or any of its related technologies.

C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or YouTube Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Website itself, the YouTube Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.

D. You agree not to use the Website, including the YouTube Embeddable Player for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of YouTube. Prohibited commercial uses include any of the following actions taken without YouTube's express approval:

    * sale of access to the Website or its related services (such as the Embeddable Player) on another website;
    * use of the Website or its related services (such as the Embeddable Player), for the primary purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue;
    * the sale of advertising, on the YouTube website or any third-party website, targeted to the content of specific User Submissions or YouTube content;
    * and any use of the Website or its related services (such as the Embeddable player) that YouTube finds, in its sole discretion, to use YouTube's resources or User Submissions with the effect of competing with or displacing the market for YouTube, YouTube content, or its User Submissions. (For more information about prohibited commercial uses, see our FAQ.)

E. Prohibited commercial uses do not include:

    * uploading an original video to YouTube, or maintaining an original channel on YouTube, to promote your business or artistic enterprise;
    * using the Embeddable Player to show YouTube videos on an ad-enabled blog or website, provided the primary purpose of using the Embeddable Player is not to gain advertising revenue or compete with YouTube;
    * any use that YouTube expressly authorizes in writing.

(For more information about what constitutes a prohibited commercial use, see our FAQ.)

F. If you use the YouTube Embeddable Player on your website, you must include a prominent link back to the YouTube website on the pages containing the Embeddable Player and you may not modify, build upon, or block any portion of the Embeddable Player in any way.

G. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, YouTube grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. YouTube reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Website, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Website (e.g. comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Website with respect to their User Submissions.

H. You will otherwise comply with the terms and conditions of these Terms of Service, YouTube Community Guidelines, and all applicable local, national, and international laws and regulations.

I. YouTube reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the YouTube Website at any time.
5. Your Use of Content on the Site

In addition to the general restrictions above, the following restrictions and conditions apply specifically to your use of content on the YouTube Website.

A. The content on the YouTube Website, except all User Submissions (as defined below), including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, interactive features and the like ("Content") and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein ("Marks"), are owned by or licensed to YouTube, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the law. Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be downloaded, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners. YouTube reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Website and the Content.

B. You may access User Submissions solely:

    * for your information and personal use;
    * as intended through the normal functionality of the YouTube Service; and
    * for Streaming.

"Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of an audiovisual work via the Internet from the YouTube Service to a user's device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be copied, stored, permanently downloaded, or redistributed by the user. Accessing User Videos for any purpose or in any manner other than Streaming is expressly prohibited. User Videos are made available "as is."

C. User Comments are made available to you for your information and personal use solely as intended through the normal functionality of the YouTube Service. User Comments are made available "as is", and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, downloaded, or otherwise exploited in any manner not intended by the normal functionality of the YouTube Service or otherwise as prohibited under this Agreement.

D. You may access YouTube Content, User Submissions and other content only as permitted under this Agreement. YouTube reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the YouTube Content and the YouTube Service.

E. You agree to not engage in the use, copying, or distribution of any of the Content other than expressly permitted herein, including any use, copying, or distribution of User Submissions of third parties obtained through the Website for any commercial purposes.

F. You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the YouTube Website or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the YouTube Website or the Content therein.

G. You understand that when using the YouTube Website, you will be exposed to User Submissions from a variety of sources, and that YouTube is not responsible for the accuracy, usefulness, safety, or intellectual property rights of or relating to such User Submissions. You further understand and acknowledge that you may be exposed to User Submissions that are inaccurate, offensive, indecent, or objectionable, and you agree to waive, and hereby do waive, any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against YouTube with respect thereto, and agree to indemnify and hold YouTube, its Owners/Operators, affiliates, and/or licensors, harmless to the fullest extent allowed by law regarding all matters related to your use of the site.

[SHENGTON]

How about here sir Broni? If someone asking for how to download in Youtube, is it against here in this forum?

[Fed]

FORUM RULES
BY USING OR ATTEMPTING TO USE THE COMPUTER HOPE FORUMS YOU AGREE THAT YOU SHALL NOT DO ANY OF THE BELOW IN ANY MANNER OR TO ANY EXTENT.

COMMIT OR PUBLISH ANY ABUSE, HARASSMENT, STALKING, USE OF PROFANITY OR VIOLATE ANY OTHER VISITOR. 
COMMIT OR CONDUCT IN ANY CRIMINAL OFFENSES.
POST ANY INFORMATION THAT IS MEANT TO DAMAGE OR WORSEN ANOTHER USERS SITUATION. 
ADVERTISE OR OFFER TO SELL ANY GOODS OR SERVICES.
FALSIFY YOUR IDENTITY OR INFORMATION.
POST LINKS TO DOWNLOADS OR UPLOAD ANY SOFTWARE THAT CONTAINS SPYWARE, TROJAN HORSES, VIRUSES, PORNOGRAPHY, WAREZ, OR ANY OTHER SOFTWARE THAT CONTAINS MALICIOUS CODE OR CANNOT BE LEGALLY DISTRIBUTED. 

[SHENGTON]

Ahh ok...Not  it isn't allowed here...

[contrex]

I beg to differ.

If the online content is legal to view, then saving it on your disk is simply fair use (unless you publish the saved content to others without permission). If it is not legal to view, i.e. it is copyrighted like a TV show or a movie may be, then downloading it to your hard drive does not add to the illegality. Since Youtube videos are cached on your hard drive anyway, you download them when you watch them. The whereabouts of the FLV file is just not immediately obvious.

This type of question, "is it illegal to do xyz?" seems to crop up again and again here, and on many other forums. The answers given often seem to be based more on guesswork or wishful thinking than on any actual legal reality, and in many cases (as here I fear) more heat than light is generated.

Firstly, what is meant by the term "illegal"? It is illegal to break into somebody's house or pick their pockets in most if not all countries in the world. That is a breach of the criminal law. The police can arrest you and take you to court where you could be fined or imprisoned.

It can also be illegal to copy a book, film, software or music disk that you have bought, and pass it on to other people, whether for money or not. That is a breach of copyright. That is a civil, not a criminal offence.

Now we come to the question of software EULAs, and "terms and conditions" shown on websites such as Youtube. The law governing these things is different in different countries. It is worth pointing out that US law does not, surprising as it is to many, apply in any other country. This applies to the DMCA as much as it does to any other American law.

In Great Britain, for example, the Microsoft shrink-wrap EULAs are actually illegal (i.e. not valid) in themselves, since they are read only after the contract between the buyer and seller has been entered into. In fact, for a contract to exist, two things must exist.

1. A service or goods is supplied to the buyer by the seller.
2. A "valuable consideration" (payment or some other tangible or measurable thing) is given by the buyer to the seller

Also, for a contract to legally exist, the terms of that contract must be fair and equitable, and displayed to the buyer before the contract is made. The seller cannot just write any things he likes into a list of rules and expect the courts to uphold it. Furthermore, things given away free cannot have strings attached, and ideas like "if you click here you are deemed to agree" have no legal force.

Poeple going to the Youtube site are not making any payment whatsoever and therefore under British law no contract can exist, and any "terms and conditions" shown on the web site are completely meaningless and not binding in any way. That is not to say that the normal laws of copyright do not apply, and in the UK at least, they do not forbid the downloading of non-copyrighted Youtube videos onto a private computer for personal use.

Doing something that a web site owner does not want you to do, or would rather you didn't do, is not a crime (yet), if that website owner does not have the legal power to stop you.

So, Shengton, download Youtube videos if you want to. You can get a Firefox extension that makes it very easy. I use it every day. Just Google for "Firefox Youtube extension".

[edit]

Let me clarify something. If you wrote a robot script that repeatedly and continuously hit the Youtube site, searching for and leeching as many video clips as it could find, and you ran it from a farm of PCs all connected at 100 Mbit/sec, so that you maxed out or compromised  Youtube's bandwidth, they could complain to your ISP, which probably has clauses forbidding such activity.

If you then set up a website called Metube and put them all up there, Youtube might be able to sue you for breach of copyright.

[Broni]

The answers given often seem to be based more on guesswork or wishful thinking than on any actual legal reality, and in many cases (as here I fear) more heat than light is generated.

I second this...
Obviously, millions of people, use PnP, torrents, download video from YouTube, etc.
What has happened in this thread, he asked for official rules, and official rules were given to him.
What you do inside your 4 walls, is totally different story...

[contrex]

The answers given often seem to be based more on guesswork or wishful thinking than on any actual legal reality, and in many cases (as here I fear) more heat than light is generated.

I second this...
Obviously, millions of people, use PnP, torrents, download video from YouTube, etc.
What has happened in this thread, he asked for official rules, and official rules were given to him.
What you do inside your 4 walls, is totally different story...

He asked two questions,

Is downloading videos from youtube illegal?

Here in this forum is it illegal if someone ask if there's a software where he can download videos in Youtube?

I think personally that since it is not illegal to download from Youtube, it should not be against the forum rules to discuss it.

[mycompisbroke]

What the cyber po-po don't know wont hurt them . Unless you do something that would cause them to search your computer (for example, trying to hack whitehouse.gov) you shouldn't worry about it. Also as difficult as it is to believe whitehouse.gov did actually get hacked once or twice if I recall right.

[Broni]

Also. RIAA, has been trying for quiet some years, scare people from using PnP, and all they come up with is to sue some poor single mother for $200,000.
I guess, those guys don't know very simple history rule:
Where there is a weapon, there is an anti-weapon