So what is the legal stance on this ripping software? In the abstract, ripping software is not illegal, says American intellectual property lawyer Thomas D Sydnor II – it's covered by the US legal concept of 'fair use'. Once notified of an infringing tool, or service that allows the downloading of a YouTube video without permission from the content owner, we take appropriate action.' When contacted by the Guardian, a YouTube spokesman said: 'Our terms of service prohibit the downloading, or copying of videos on YouTube without explicit consent from the copyright holder. Yet, the third result on the first page, when doing a Google search for 'YouTube ripping software' recently, was a video showing 'How to rip vids from YouTube (the easy way, no software)' – posted on the YouTube site. Is there anything YouTube can do about the problem? In June last year it was reported that the company was cracking down on YouTube-to-MP3 ripping sites, and had sent cease-and-desist letters to a number of sites threatening legal consequences to those that didn't comply. Shipley listed a number of the songs, adding that what the people behind the site were doing was 'illegal and reprehensible', instructing them to remove links to her songs immediately.ĬlipDJ's response was: 'Please provide me the links to your YouTube videos or your YouTube channel, so I can block the conversion for your videos to MP3s and MP4s :)' She wrote: 'How dare you steal my right to earn an income from my songs! You do not have my permission to have anyone download any of my songs for free!' Songwriter Ellen Shipley contacted the makers of the ClipDJ web application after she was made aware that internet users could search for Belinda Carlisle songs she had written on its site, and then use the app to download them from YouTube as MP3s. Do a Google search for 'YouTube ripping software' and the first page will include results such as 'Top 3 free YouTube Ripper Online', 'YouTube Video Ripper' and a multitude of other software options.

The problem of widespread 'ripping' of streams is legal music services' worst-kept secret, no more so than when it comes to YouTube.

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