i’d appreciate it if, for outsiders, you could explain why it’s “the most amount of nonsense” and “mental gymnastics” in actual detail instead of just saying that. as is, this is a very unproductive comment.
Because of course Invidious calls YouTube APIs. They call the internal APIs the same way YouTube official client calls the API. They even have the API Key of one of YouTube client’s in their repo. The guy’s argument is that since they reverse engineered the calls, which is fine, they don’t have to agree to YouTube’s TOS to call it, which means YouTube’s cease and desist invalid. I host my own private instance of Invidious to stream youtube audio to my phone. Of course reverse engineering is fine, scarping is fine, even the code is fine, and I’d agree that YouTube going after repos on github is wrong. But of course hosting Invidious is a violation of YouTube’s TOS.
I’ll admit I hadn’t seen that, and that I was just echoing what TheFrenchGhosty said. That sure does look like official API access. They also seem to make calls through that wrapper to access comments and plenty of other things, so it’s not just sitting there unused.
The README and the refute of YouTube’s C&D letter both claim that Invidious doesn’t use YouTube’s APIs at all - not merely that the response creation/interpretation was reverse-engineered. Obviously, the TOS applies to the fact that you interact with the API, not whether you access it manually or with the help of some code pre-prepared by Google. Yet it seems that other people have vetted you and not raised this issue. So I’m assuming we’re simply misunderstanding here, and hoping you can clear it up.
well, there was a long thread about this on /r/selfhosted where @TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org@TheFrenchGhosty@libretooth.gr was saying pretty much what I said, but with a tad more mental gymnastics mostly about EU laws regarding reverse engineering and lack of a formal agreement between them and YouTube.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), /r/selfhosted is private atm due to the blackout, so I’m unable to find and share thread link.
The facts are:
Invidious (as an OSS project) calls undocumented internal YouTube APIs (they call it InnerTube).
Anyone can host an Invidious instance.
The main Invidious instance, i.e: https://invidious.io/ received a cease and desist from YouTube.
@TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org@TheFrenchGhosty@libretooth.gr posted all about this on GitHub, reddit, their personal blog, and contacted random media outlets like the one linked here, to complain about how “we have nothing to do with YouTube, why is YouTube bullying us”. And since everyone obviously wants to give the little guy the benefit of the doubt, everyone starts wondering how it could be that a project that’s all about providing an alternative UI for YouTube, doesn’t call YouTube.
It’s like if a movie pirating website is trying to argue
“Endgame.mp4” is just a file name. It has nothing to do with Marvel or Disney. What the hell are those greedy companies have to do with us??
I’m all for invidious, piracy, etc. But seriously?
A torrent tracker doesn’t host anything either. It’s merely a lighthouse for people to know who is hosting it. And trackers are hosted exclusively in certain specific countries because of that.
I’m not sure that’s true. Most private trackers accept donations. Some even require you to buy some seedbox plan they get commission from (even though that’s generally frowned upon).
All the high profile trackers I can think of that were shutdown through legal notice (Mininova, isoHunt, KickassTorrent, ThePirateBay, etc) were all public trackers. Maybe they had ads or something on their website, but their shutdown had nothing to do with them making money. They were shutdown for piracy even though they never “hosted” any content. They were just trackers.
Hell, even Popcorn Time, a software that just let you easily search torrents and stream them, it hosted nothing, just connected you to trackers that had movies was too shutdown by legal notice.
Trackers that survive are usually hosted behind VPNs and are physically located in Russia or China.
i’d appreciate it if, for outsiders, you could explain why it’s “the most amount of nonsense” and “mental gymnastics” in actual detail instead of just saying that. as is, this is a very unproductive comment.
Because of course Invidious calls YouTube APIs. They call the internal APIs the same way YouTube official client calls the API. They even have the API Key of one of YouTube client’s in their repo. The guy’s argument is that since they reverse engineered the calls, which is fine, they don’t have to agree to YouTube’s TOS to call it, which means YouTube’s cease and desist invalid. I host my own private instance of Invidious to stream youtube audio to my phone. Of course reverse engineering is fine, scarping is fine, even the code is fine, and I’d agree that YouTube going after repos on github is wrong. But of course hosting Invidious is a violation of YouTube’s TOS.
I’ll admit I hadn’t seen that, and that I was just echoing what TheFrenchGhosty said. That sure does look like official API access. They also seem to make calls through that wrapper to access comments and plenty of other things, so it’s not just sitting there unused.
Thankfully, TheFrenchGhosty is on the Fediverse, so let’s ask them: @TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org @TheFrenchGhosty@libretooth.gr (not sure which one of these to use) How is this not using an official YouTube API?
The README and the refute of YouTube’s C&D letter both claim that Invidious doesn’t use YouTube’s APIs at all - not merely that the response creation/interpretation was reverse-engineered. Obviously, the TOS applies to the fact that you interact with the API, not whether you access it manually or with the help of some code pre-prepared by Google. Yet it seems that other people have vetted you and not raised this issue. So I’m assuming we’re simply misunderstanding here, and hoping you can clear it up.
well, there was a long thread about this on /r/selfhosted where @TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org @TheFrenchGhosty@libretooth.gr was saying pretty much what I said, but with a tad more mental gymnastics mostly about EU laws regarding reverse engineering and lack of a formal agreement between them and YouTube.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), /r/selfhosted is private atm due to the blackout, so I’m unable to find and share thread link.
The facts are:
@TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org @TheFrenchGhosty@libretooth.gr posted all about this on GitHub, reddit, their personal blog, and contacted random media outlets like the one linked here, to complain about how “we have nothing to do with YouTube, why is YouTube bullying us”. And since everyone obviously wants to give the little guy the benefit of the doubt, everyone starts wondering how it could be that a project that’s all about providing an alternative UI for YouTube, doesn’t call YouTube.
It’s like if a movie pirating website is trying to argue
I’m all for invidious, piracy, etc. But seriously?
Gday matey. The difference with Invidious and endgame.mp4, is that invidious doesnt host anything, its merely a proxy.
A torrent tracker doesn’t host anything either. It’s merely a lighthouse for people to know who is hosting it. And trackers are hosted exclusively in certain specific countries because of that.
I think the issues with trackers is they were making money out of it? Iirc the trackers themselves, if kept from making a profit are untouchable
I’m not sure that’s true. Most private trackers accept donations. Some even require you to buy some seedbox plan they get commission from (even though that’s generally frowned upon).
All the high profile trackers I can think of that were shutdown through legal notice (Mininova, isoHunt, KickassTorrent, ThePirateBay, etc) were all public trackers. Maybe they had ads or something on their website, but their shutdown had nothing to do with them making money. They were shutdown for piracy even though they never “hosted” any content. They were just trackers.
Hell, even Popcorn Time, a software that just let you easily search torrents and stream them, it hosted nothing, just connected you to trackers that had movies was too shutdown by legal notice.
Trackers that survive are usually hosted behind VPNs and are physically located in Russia or China.