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Thursday, July 21, 2011

How to download and save streaming videos

Media_httpdownloadwin_ahabu

"...Each video (and online game) site has different restrictions, so make sure your activities don’t violate any laws or user agreements. The YouTube terms of service (TOS), for example, are quite succinct:

“You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube’s prior written authorization. … You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.”

As far as I can tell, YouTube’s TOS doesn’t cover cases where a product (such as an iPad) is incapable of playing a video because of format restrictions. More about that in a moment.

What the YouTube TOS says you can do might not coincide with local laws. Is it illegal to record something playing on your computer, so you can view it at a later time? If so, why does YouTube have hooks that allow programs to download files? (Netflix, for example, is almost impervious to similar approaches because of the technology it uses.) The legal situation is murky at best. Caveat downloader...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

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