download helper. Firefox

[Mystic Muse]

is this addon illegal? I don't want to be using it if it is.

[Renegade Paladin]

No. There are things you can do with it that might be illegal, but the application itself is not.

[Mystic Muse]

that's....... troubling.

[Renegade Paladin]

Why? There are many things that are legal that one can do illegal things with. Hammers, knives, screwdrivers, a plethora of household chemicals, fertilizer, and oh so much more are perfectly legal and useful things that can be used to commit armed assault, murder, arson, and all manner of violent crime; next to that a simple download tool (which has many legitimate uses) is downright innocuous.

[Trobby]

Download Helper is 100% not illegal. I've never actually had a cause to use it, but my understanding is it just makes downloading videos an easier process.

[RS14]

I am not a lawyer.

It does seem probable that if you can watch a video within the bounds of fair-use, you can make a copy of it for personal use within the bounds of fair use.

Whether watching a given video on e.g. youtube falls within the bounds fair use is different question altogether.

[Mystic Muse]

thanks for the help.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Why? There are many things that are legal that one can do illegal things with. Hammers, knives, screwdrivers, a plethora of household chemicals, fertilizer, and oh so much more are perfectly legal and useful things that can be used to commit armed assault, murder, arson, and all manner of violent crime; next to that a simple download tool (which has many legitimate uses) is downright innocuous.
Even teddy bears and fountain pens can be illegal if you're Jason Bourne.


It does seem probable that if you can watch a video within the bounds of fair-use, you can make a copy of it for personal use within the bounds of fair use.

Whether watching a given video on e.g. youtube falls within the bounds fair use is different question altogether.
I am not a lawyer either, however I made the effort to educate myself in US copyrights and the like.

Under the law this it's perfectly legal to, for example, save a YouTube video. It's fundamentally still the same as, for example, recording a show off TV on your VCR. That said, the MPAA did lobby very hard for a nationwide ban on VCRs and similar technology, and almost succeeded too.

Where it gets illegal is that you can't publicly play it and you can't publicly distribute it. I.e. you can't, for example, download tracks of Limewire and play them at your venue if you're a DJ. You also can't distribute them on BitTorrent or the like. But beyond that you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want with it. Including modify it as you see fit irregardless of the copyright holder's wishes. As long as you don't publicly distribute it.

PS: downloading a song or similar is also technically legal as long as you're not redistributing it (i.e. sharing). However, RIAA/MPAA/other asshats can make a civil case against you if they feel like it. And we all know that in civil cases it doesn't matter who's right, it only matters who has better lawyers. Downloading I mean like actually downloading, not recording off YouTube.

[RS14]

Under the law this it's perfectly legal to, for example, save a YouTube video. It's fundamentally still the same as, for example, recording a show off TV on your VCR. That said, the MPAA did lobby very hard for a nationwide ban on VCRs and similar technology, and almost succeeded too.

I think the difference is that material broadcast and copied for personal use is presumably broadcast legitimately, while a great quantity of material on YouTube is potentially infringing.

There does not seem to me to be any great technical difference between YouTube w/ DownloadHelper, and Napster, for example.

[Jalor]

Copyright law in America is civil, not criminal. If a band knows that fans are torrenting their latest album and they don't press charges, nobody's guilty of a crime. The trouble for most comes when record companies who also have rights to the song decide to go after the cheapskate fans.


Why? There are many things that are legal that one can do illegal things with. Hammers, knives, screwdrivers, a plethora of household chemicals, fertilizer, and oh so much more are perfectly legal and useful things that can be used to commit armed assault, murder, arson, and all manner of violent crime; next to that a simple download tool (which has many legitimate uses) is downright innocuous.
This is why torrenting is legal.

[RS14]

Copyright law in America is civil, not criminal. If a band knows that fans are torrenting their latest album and they don't press charges, nobody's guilty of a crime. The trouble for most comes when record companies who also have rights to the song decide to go after the cheapskate fans.

No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act)

As a practical matter, however, the feds don't go after individuals for committing copyright infringement not-for-profit.