> I think the question is whether the license YouTube implicitly provides to copy so one can stream also extends to downloading to a file. Probably not.
> Why that should be youtube-dl's fault is yet another question, of course.
TV broadcasters do not give you a license to copy their content but it's legal to record TV. Why is youtube any different?
Today, there are a multitude of options for consuming TV content, and due to the (recent) creation of time-shifted licenses, the fair use justification for standalone-DVRs has mostly gone out the window (which is why they're not for sale anymore; for example, Tivo no longer offers standalone DVRs; Hulu, cable companies pay for time-shifted viewing).
As Youtube was always on-demand to begin with, the time-shifting justification for recording TV in the Betamax case never applied.
Yes, that is why 17 USC § 117 provides that making a transitory copy necessary to run the program (such as a RAM copy), or an archival copy of the data needed to run the program, are both explicitly not violations of copyright.
I think the question is whether the license YouTube implicitly provides to copy so one can stream also extends to downloading to a file. Probably not.
It does not. Youtube does not explicitly, or implicitly, provide the user a license of any type. Youtube has licensed the right to provide a temporary copy of a video to a user.
Why that should be youtube-dl's fault is yet another question, of course.
It normally wouldn't be...except that some idiot decided to include unit tests to make sure that youtube-dl could be used to download music videos covered by RIAA licenses. That basically makes the RIAA's case, especially since youtube-dl must be regularly updated to handle Google's countermeasures.
I think the question is whether the license YouTube implicitly provides to copy so one can stream also extends to downloading to a file. Probably not.
Why that should be youtube-dl's fault is yet another question, of course.