YouTube-related policies

[pwabrahams]

I believe that the policies relating to YouTube conflate two distinct issues: posting YouTube content on the Forum versus posting information about downloading YouTube content on the Forum.

I have no problem with banning content taken from YouTube on the forum, and I doubt if anyone else has a problem with it either. I've seen a lot of posts on the Forum, though hardly a significant fraction of the total, and in none of them was there any content taken from YouTube.

The program youtube-dl is available from a number of respectable sources such as webupd8 and github.com. Even if webupd8 is in some sense violating YouTube's rules (and I don't think it is), it isn't a party to those rules. I don't think it takes a lawyer to understand the issue of posting information about downloading YouTube videos on the forum, since nothing in YouTube's policy talks about that.

At worst there might be a legal issue about posting information on how to circumvent YouTube's restrictions, but even that is very uncertain -- and such circumvention, though conceivably illegal, would still not be a violation of YouTube's restrictions. And for the Ubuntu Forum to reference the availability of a package on webupd8 without actually providing the package would be at worst a second-order or third-order violation. It reminds me of the old T-shirts displaying the DECSS code.

I hope this post is not in itself a violation of Ubuntu Forum policies. It shouldn't be.

[lisati]

For the admins:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2089326
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2090818
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2090849

[Elfy]

First the youtube issue - this quote from the Resolution Centre sticky, sums up the stance here.

We are not a court of law. If you wish to challenge their terms hire a lawyer and take your argument up with YouTube. The arguments are inappropriate here as we do not administer their website. Any such complaints here will result in warnings and infractions being issued.

Secondly - just because something can be downloaded and installed doesn't mean support for it is allowed here, youtube tools are not the only ones.

We don't allow support for aircrack either, nor do we support logging in as root.

The policy is, at present, the policy.