Emms and youtube-dl

Emms and youtube-dl

[Yoni Rabkin]

Hello all,

Emms is a multimedia player for Emacs available via GNU ELPA
(https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/elpa.git/log/?h=externals/emms)

Someone is offering to add code to Emms which supports
youtube-dl/ytdl. The FSF has a post about those programs here and
youtube generally here:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.en.html

Initially, I rejected the code because I thought that youtube-dl runs
non-free javascript. But that FSF article says it does not. But still
the other reasons in the article, mainly that youtube-dl is a fragile
web-scraping kludge to access a resource which isn't committed to free
access, I am hesitant to add the code.

I would much rather code which supports freedom-respecting video sites
exclusively (if such sites exist, I don't know, it isn't something I
look for.)

I wanted to know if Emacs at-large had a policy here, or if you can
provide insight.

Thank you.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Initially, I rejected the code because I thought that youtube-dl runs
  > non-free javascript. But that FSF article says it does not. But still
  > the other reasons in the article, mainly that youtube-dl is a fragile
  > web-scraping kludge to access a resource which isn't committed to free
  > access, I am hesitant to add the code.

I think your view of the situation is valid.  Adding support for
youtube-scraping is likely to be bad for maintenance.

  > I would much rather code which supports freedom-respecting video sites
  > exclusively (if such sites exist, I don't know, it isn't something I
  > look for.)

Perhaps you could access youtube videos via the invidio.us proxies.  I
don't know whether this can be done without scraping, or whether it
has a documented API, but maybe it does.

Perhaps peertube offers a documented API you could use.

Perhaps archive.org  offers a documented API you could use
for SOME of its videos.  It won't be all of them.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Rudolf Adamkovič]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Adding support for youtube-scraping is likely to be bad for
> maintenance. […] Perhaps you could access youtube videos via the
> invidio.us proxies. […] Perhaps peertube offers a documented API you
> could use.

For maintenance, I do not see much of a difference between using a local
scraper, such as 'youtube-dl', and using a remote scraper, such as
Invidious.  They both alleviate the pain of scraping and provide
documented APIs.  The question really comes down to ethics, and among
the mentioned programs, just PeerTube differs in this regard.

Rudy
-- 
"I love deadlines.  I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
-- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt, 2002

Rudolf Adamkovič <salutis@me.com> [he/him]
Studenohorská 25
84103 Bratislava
Slovakia

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > For maintenance, I do not see much of a difference between using a local
  > scraper, such as 'youtube-dl', and using a remote scraper, such as
  > Invidious.

When you run software on your own machine, you have to be concerned with
maintaining it or updating it.  When you talk to a service, you don't.

For this job, it makes no moral difference whether you talk to
youtube.com or invidious.whatever -- either way, you're downloading
the video from a service.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Rudolf Adamkovič]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> When you run software on your own machine, you have to be concerned
> with maintaining it or updating it.  When you talk to a service, you
> don't.

Ah, I see.  I thought you meant maintenance burden for the EMMS
developers.  Then, it makes sense.

(Though, as a user of EMMS myself, I would prefer to run the scraper on
my computer.  And why not?  I see it as yet-another unnecessary
dependence on "the cloud" for no good reason.)

> For this job, it makes no moral difference whether you talk to
> youtube.com or invidious.whatever -- either way, you're downloading
> the video from a service.

Agreed.  Thank you for the clarification.

Rudy
-- 
"The whole science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
thinking."
-- Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

Rudolf Adamkovič <salutis@me.com> [he/him]
Studenohorská 25
84103 Bratislava
Slovakia

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > > For this job, it makes no moral difference whether you talk to
  > > youtube.com or invidious.whatever -- either way, you're downloading
  > > the video from a service.

  > Agreed.  Thank you for the clarification.

I see now that what I wrote before is liable to misunderstanding.  A
crucial point is that in either case, one way or another, you wouldn't
run Javascript from the site.

That eliminates a possible difference between the two sites.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Emms and youtube-dl

[Stefan Monnier]

> Someone is offering to add code to Emms which supports
> youtube-dl/ytdl. The FSF has a post about those programs here and
> youtube generally here:
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.en.html
>
> Initially, I rejected the code because I thought that youtube-dl runs
> non-free javascript. But that FSF article says it does not. But still
> the other reasons in the article, mainly that youtube-dl is a fragile
> web-scraping kludge to access a resource which isn't committed to free
> access, I am hesitant to add the code.

AFAICT it's up to you: ethically, there is no problem with `youtube-dl`
and to the extent that it helps users avoid proprietary software I think
it's good to add support for it.

But yes, `youtube-dl` is a kludge and we should encourage people to use
services that are more friendly to our ideals, but in most cases I (as
a user) don't always get to choose where the video I need has been
uploaded (most of my uses of `youtube-dl` is to transfer the video to
a local PeerTube service ;-)


        Stefan