www/philosophy whats-wrong-with-youtube.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       19/07/30 23:14:47

Modified files:
        philosophy     : whats-wrong-with-youtube.html 

Log message:
        Describe the current situation.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.35&r2=1.36

Patches:
Index: whats-wrong-with-youtube.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html,v
retrieving revision 1.35
retrieving revision 1.36
diff -u -b -r1.35 -r1.36
--- whats-wrong-with-youtube.html       15 Dec 2018 14:02:39 -0000      1.35
+++ whats-wrong-with-youtube.html       31 Jul 2019 03:14:47 -0000      1.36
@@ -7,11 +7,37 @@
 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
 <h2>What's Wrong with YouTube</h2>
 
-<p>Please
-cite <a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/";>audio-video.gnu.org</a> as
-the site for videos of my speeches &mdash; not YouTube.</p>
+<p>Please don't use YouTube as the place to post videos of my talks,
+and please don't cite YouTube for that purpose.  If the talk is
+available
+in <a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/";>audio-video.gnu.org</a>,
+please cite that site.</p>
+
+<p>As of 2019 there is free software that permits access to YouTube
+from some browsers.  It is an add-on which is preinstalled in the GNU
+browser, IceCat, and can be loaded into Firefox.  As a result of this,
+posting videos on YouTube does not at the moment put them off limits
+to the free world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, we cannot count on this to keep working.  The add-on already
+broke once this year.  This time, a corrected add-on was released
+after a few weeks.  Next time, who knows?  Thus, posting on YouTube is
+a fragile solution.</p>
+
+<p>
+In addition, most people will watch YouTube by running the nonfree
+software that Google sends to users.  Let's not encourage people to do
+that.</p>
+
+<p>
+As of mid-July, 2019, the add-on works for vimeo.com, but not for most
+other sites.</p>
 
-<p>There are two problems with YouTube as a place to post
+<h2>What else <em>Was<a/em> Wrong with YouTube</h2>
+
+<p>These were the problems with YouTube as a place to post
 videos or refer to videos.</p>
 
 <ul>
@@ -46,26 +72,19 @@
 is no complete free software solution for access in a browser.
 </li>
 
-</ul>
+<li>
+"ContentID is exactly the thing YouTube claims it doesn't do:
+<a 
href="https://boingboing.net/2018/12/26/youtube-let-a-contentid-scamme.html";>
+privately mediating ownership of [publications] without involving the law</a>."
+</li>
 
-<!--
-<p>The free software community has made progress in overcoming these
-problems.  It is getting easier to access YouTube videos (except those
-with DRM) without running nonfree software.  Indeed, the HTML5 Video
-Everywhere add-on for Firefox (included in IceCat) takes care of this,
-though it occasionally breaks temporarily when sites change their
-undocumented APIs.</p>
-
-<p>However, most users don't use such methods, so putting a video on
-YouTube usually leads people to watch it by running nonfree
-software.</p>
--->
+</ul>
 
 <p>One thing about YouTube that is <em>not</em> a moral strike against
 it is nonfree software on YouTube servers &mdash; if there is any.  We
 as possible users of YouTube can't tell whether the servers run any
 nonfree software, because that has no effect on us &mdash; therefore
-it doesn't do wrong to us.</p>
+it doesn't do any wrong to us.</p>
 
 <p>If there are any nonfree programs running on YouTube servers, they
 mistreat Google by denying Google control of that aspect of its
@@ -74,12 +93,9 @@
 the <em>users</em> of YouTube, so they are not a reason to refuse
 to <em>use</em> that service.</p>
 
-<hr/>
-
-<p>Dailymotion and Vimeo have the same problem as YouTube's HTML5
-option: viewing their videos in the normal way requires nonfree
-JavaScript code.  Archive.org at least permits viewing most videos
-without you're having to run any nonfree software to see them.</p>
+<p>It is also possible that all the software running on YouTube
+servers is free&mdash;either published free software or private
+unreleased free software.<hr/>
 
 <hr/>
 
@@ -140,7 +156,7 @@
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2018/12/15 14:02:39 $
+$Date: 2019/07/31 03:14:47 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>