{"id":87623,"date":"2026-09-29T09:05:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T09:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=87623"},"modified":"2026-09-29T09:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T09:05:30","slug":"ifpi-wants-open-source-youtube-downloader-yt-dlp-on-eu-piracy-watch-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=87623","title":{"rendered":"IFPI Wants Open Source YouTube Downloader yt-dlp on EU Piracy Watch List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ifpiIn October 2020, the RIAA used a DMCA notice<\/a> to remove the popular YouTube download tool youtube-dl from GitHub.<\/p>\n

The RIAA argued that the software circumvented YouTube\u2019s rolling cipher technology. A few weeks later, GitHub reinstated<\/a> the repository and set up a $1 million defense fund for developers facing similar claims.<\/p>\n

The music industry had more success in Germany, where labels won a lawsuit<\/a> against Uberspace<\/a>, the hosting provider of youtube-dl\u2019s official website. In November 2024, the Hamburg Court of Appeal rejected<\/a> the host\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

While youtube-dl was never formally shut down, active development has been largely taken over by the open source fork yt-dlp. In fact, people who visit the original .org domain<\/a> of youtube-dl\u2019s former website are redirected to yt-dlp.<\/p>\n

The yt-dlp project<\/a> launched in 2021 and has more than 16,000 forks and more than 190,000 stars on GitHub, making it the 32nd most-starred project<\/a> on the site.<\/p>\n

IFPI Flags yt-dlp as \u201cMajor Problem\u201d<\/h2>\n

The music business is well aware of these developments and continues to see this type of software as a problem. In a new policy submission, music industry group IFPI<\/a> highlights yt-dlp as a major problem, naming four developers by their online handles. <\/p>\n

The callout is part of IFPI\u2019s submission to the consultation for the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. Among other things, it asks for yt-dlp to be added to the list of stream ripping services, alongside Savefrom.net and two Y2mate sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cYT-DLP is a major problem for the music industry as it provides freely available open-source software that enables users to download and permanently store music and audiovisual content from licensed streaming platforms, including YouTube, without authorisation,\u201d IFPI writes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A Major Problem<\/em><\/center>
\"a<\/center><\/p>\n

IFPI\u2019s overview describes the project\u2019s history, its stream ripping capabilities, and the copyright-critical Unlicense<\/a> it\u2019s released under. The group also explains why the software is hard to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts open-source nature, extensive developer community and its widespread distribution results in the tool being difficult to contain and\/or remove, while continuing to facilitate stream ripping at scale and depriving right holders, artists and licensed services from legitimate streaming and downloads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four GitHub Handles<\/h2>\n

The submission identifies the project\u2019s founder as GitHub user pukkandan, who it says was lead maintainer from 2021 to 2024. It also lists three current core maintainers: coletdjnz, bashonly and Grub4K. These handles are publicly listed on GitHub. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From yt-dlp\u2019s GitHub<\/em><\/center>
\"dlp\"<\/center><\/p>\n

This is the first time we\u2019ve seen yt-dlp, or the original youtube-dl, named as a target in a Watch List or Notorious Markets submission. <\/p>\n

Besides the listing, the yt-dlp callout doesn\u2019t ask for anything concrete. There is no takedown request, call for blocking measures, or any action against the developers. The submission also doesn\u2019t mention that the software can be used for lawful purposes.<\/p>\n

Circumvention?<\/h2>\n

The yt-dlp description does not mention the word \u2018circumvention\u2019 either, but the general stream-ripper intro does. IFPI argues that YouTube uses technical protection measures to prevent downloads.<\/p>\n

\u201cStream ripping sites are circumventing these measures that enjoy legal protections under the international treaties and EU law,\u201d the submission reads.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Legal protections<\/em><\/center>
\"legal<\/center><\/p>\n

The music group also cites the German youtube-dl ruling, where the court held the website\u2019s host liable for aiding and abetting the circumvention of these measures. <\/p>\n

However, the submission itself describes the tool as \u201cparsing webpage and player data, and interacting with platform-specific playback endpoints.\u201d How circumvention potentially fits in there is not mentioned. <\/p>\n

Officially Hosted in the United States<\/h2>\n

The European Commission\u2019s Watch List highlights marketplaces and services outside the EU that reportedly engage in or facilitate piracy and counterfeiting. While the location of the developers isn\u2019t discussed, GitHub is called out as the hosting platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cGithub is YT-DLP\u2019s official source; it serves as the main platform for accessing the scripts latest updates, source code, pre-compiled binaries and installation instructions,\u201d IFPI writes, while adding that forks and copies are also available elsewhere. <\/p>\n

GitHub is a Microsoft-owned company, based in the United States, which would make the yt-dlp repository US-hosted. <\/p>\n

AI \u2018Ripping\u2019 Threats<\/h2>\n

IFPI\u2019s submission is not limited to traditional threats. It also flags a newer type of ripping tool. AI music apps Rythmix<\/a> and MusiQ AI<\/a> allow users to paste a YouTube link and turn the recording into an AI cover song with a cloned artist voice. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rythmix<\/em><\/center>
\"Rythmix\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Both these tools are available in Apple\u2019s App Store, and Rythmix is also on Google Play, where it was already downloaded more than five million times.<\/p>\n

In the months to come, the European Commission will go over all submissions and decide which of the proposed targets make it into the 2027 edition of the list. Whether that includes yt-dlp or the AI apps has yet to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

IFPI\u2019s submission to the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List consultation, which includes a variety of additional targets, is available here (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We reached out to the yt-dlp maintainers and GitHub for a comment on IFPI\u2019s submission, but they did not respond before publication.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October 2020, the RIAA used a DMCA notice to remove the popular YouTube download tool youtube-dl from GitHub. The RIAA argued that the software circumvented YouTube\u2019s rolling cipher technology. A few weeks later, GitHub reinstated the repository and set up a $1 million defense fund for developers facing similar claims. The music industry had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}