![\"is](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/is-it-illegal-youtube.png\")
<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\nAnyone who read past the first line of this top result, collect 10 points. Those who read the second, take another 20 because that claim seems fairly important and we may have to come back to it.<\/p>\n
If you spotted that the advice is published on a site promoting YouTube-ripping tools, nice work. Unfortunately, the article is of no fundamental use, no matter what it says, since it speaks about U.S. copyright law.<\/p>\n
With no copyright experts immediately available on TikTok or Facebook, we turned to the UK\u2019s third pillar of wisdom to get answers the big questions.<\/p>\n
Free Legal Advice, Nationwide<\/h2>\n
Since lawyers are expensive, it\u2019s not unusual to see some national newspapers put out a bit of legal advice here and there to make life that little bit easier. Thanks to the following text appearing in their URLs (youtube-to-mp3-converter-free-online<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0youtube-to-mp4<\/em>) a pair of articles published in The Sun were easy to find.<\/p>\n Both were published this March;\u00a0one asks<\/a>\u00a0\u201cIs converting YouTube to MP3 legal and safe?\u201d and\u00a0the other goes with<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAre YouTube to MP4 converters legal and safe?\u201d They\u2019re broadly the same article, but the latter gets right down to the\u00a0legal nitty-gritty<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo, it is not illegal,\u201d the legal advice reads. Admittedly a citation would\u2019ve been helpful but since there are apparently \u201cno laws that prohibit downloading videos from YouTube\u201d it would be unreasonable to demand links to things that don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n This will probably come as a huge shock. More than two years ago the High Court in London had a look through some of its law books and found that yes, there are some laws that prohibit downloading content from YouTube. And, in the overwhelming majority of cases,\u00a0it is not legal at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Because the music industry wants to put an end to stream-ripping sites and tools, labels in the UK spent two years preparing a case that would compel the country\u2019s major ISPs to block YouTube-ripping sites\/tools.<\/p>\n Following an online hearing on February 3, 2021, Mr Justice Miles rendered his decision at the High Court in London. To keep things as simple as possible, his key findings were as follows:<\/p>\n 1) The streaming-ripping sites were \u201cdesigned to provide a service which enables users to make infringing copies.\u201d The High Court ruling is long and complex<\/a>. For some it is controversial too. Stream-ripping services and tools can be used to download content for journalistic purposes, to download content that isn\u2019t owned by major recording labels, or to make permitted copies under the\u00a0exceptions<\/a>\u00a0granted by copyright law.<\/p>\n One of the key issues here is that the High Court recognized YouTube\u2019s rolling cypher as a technological protection measure, describing it as a \u201ccopyright-protecting safeguard\u201d built into YouTube.<\/p>\n The High Court said it was satisfied that the entire purpose of the sites\/services was to help users circumvent YouTube\u2019s technological protection measures. In the UK, circumventing technological measures is a type of copyright infringement and in the overwhelming majority of cases, completely illegal.<\/p>\n Even if the recording labels\u2019 music was taken out of the equation, when dedicated YouTubers create their own videos or the general public upload theirs, all creators can immediately rely on protection because they already own the copyright to their own work.<\/p>\n These people may decide that suing people who download their content using a ripping service is silly, but that doesn\u2019t immediately grant a downloader a license or provide permission to circumvent technological measures, although\u00a0permission may be requested<\/a>\u00a0in the UK.<\/p>\n Stating that something is entirely legal when the truth is much closer to the opposite is reckless but it goes way beyond that. It denies the reality that this and similar legal rulings are taking the internet and its users into more restricted and complicated territory because a minority of people pirate music.<\/p>\n History shows that when the major labels feel threatened, the internet starts to feel threatened. It probably should given the latest developments.<\/p>\n Sony Music currently wants DNS provider Quad9 held\u00a0liable for infringement<\/a>\u00a0it has nothing to do with and in Italy, the labels took legal action against Cloudflare for broadly the same reasons. In Germany, a host is in a\u00a0legal battle<\/a>\u00a0because it\u00a0provided a link<\/em>\u00a0to a piece of YouTube-ripping software hosted elsewhere.<\/p>\n These won\u2019t be the last blocking actions of their type, yet while they build and build, millions will shrug while finding new ways to circumvent endless blocking, claiming it doesn\u2019t affect them. And it probably won\u2019t, at least not until blocking is recognized as a technological protection measure in its own right. Then what?<\/p>\n Source: \u00a0<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\nWhat Happened, in Brief<\/h2>\n
\n2) Sites\u2019 whole purpose was to \u201ccircumvent the copyright-protecting safeguards\u201d built into services like YouTube.
\n3) The operators of the sites \u201cinduced, incited or procured\u201d users of their sites to commit infringements of copyright and as such, both the site operators and the sites\u2019 users acted \u201cpursuant to a common design to infringe.\u201d
\n4) The operators of the sites were \u201cjointly liable for the infringements committed by users.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe Importance of Circumvention<\/h2>\n
Future Circumvention<\/h2>\n
<\/a> TorrentFreak.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"