In my experience, thinking you've found a loophole legally because it is using boilerplate language usually ends really badly. If you're not a lawyer, don't assume you're as smart as a lawyer when it comes to law, and definitely don't think your flowery prose means fuck all in court. Just because it wasn't addressed directly to this guy doesn't make this magically go away.

[–] Synthclair@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Indeed, if I were the developers I would be threading much more carefully. While it may be true that the letter is not precise enough, access to YouTube implies a relative acceptance of the terms of service of providing the service, and it is not so clear cut as Invidious claims.

[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Absolutely. I'm not saying they should just fold and give up, either. However, for someone who is listed as their Finance Manager and creator of the website, it certainly screams they could be legally culpable in some way, even if the takedown notice is wrong about how Invidious works and not addressed to them directly.

The reality is, however, they need actual legal representation to fight it, and not just fucking first-year-English-student-bullshit like "Invidious just is." Google has a fucking team of lawyers on retainer, do people really think they somehow don't know what they're doing or aren't worth the money Google pays for them? Or for that matter, that a judge even understands the technical difference between API use and scraping, and their understanding hinges on Invidious's lawyer getting them to understand the difference where Google's lawyers entire play will be making the judge not understand the difference.

[–] Fauxreigner@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

This just makes me think of Kleiman v. Wright, where Craig Wright (among many, many other shenanigans) claimed that a printout of an email wasn't an email, it was a piece of paper. That didn't end up going the way he wanted.

[–] salarua@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the request won't hold up in court. they scrape Youtube's public site, so any complaint that claims they're violated the API's TOS is moot

[–] flying_gerbil@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This. They'll still try and take it off github though which is still a big deal

[–] noodlejetski@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

the team has already linked to their Gitea.

[–] bacteriostat@lemmy.one 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First they went after Vanced, now Invidious. With the ongoing recession, companies are realising that less and less people would be be willing to pay for subscriptions and to increase their revenue they are going to tie all the loose ends they have allowed over the years.

[–] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

At least there are new projects popping up every so often, like yt-dlp after youtube-dl stopped getting updates; like ReVanced; and like CloudTube and LiteTube.

[–] Monster@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I hope this doesn't spread to other frontends like piped, but I'm worried.

[–] unfazedbeaver@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago

The devs of invidious need to be more careful and circumspect in their language and response. I believe they have a good chance of fighting this, and continuing the project regardless, but Don't. Tickle. The dragon tail!

[–] frogman@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

aaa, their response on GitHub is so good. they're so cool

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