📰 New article from TorrentFreak
IFPI Wants Open Source YouTube Downloader yt-dlp on EU Piracy Watch List
https://torrentfreak.com/ifpi-wants-open-source-youtube-downloader-yt-dlp-on-eu-piracy-watch-list/
### The Music Industry vs. The Internet’s Favorite Downloader
It seems the music industry has a new villain in its playbook, and it’s not a shady pirate bay—it’s a piece of open-source code.
The IFPI (the heavy hitters representing the global music industry) has officially thrown shade at yt-dlp, the wildly popular command-line tool used to download video and audio from sites like YouTube. In a recent submission to the EU, the IFPI is lobbying to have the project added to the “Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List.”
Why the sudden heat? The IFPI argues that because yt-dlp is open-source and incredibly easy to distribute, it’s a “major problem” that allows users to bypass streaming protections and store music permanently without paying a cent.
Here’s the tricky part:
- It’s everywhere: With over 190,000 stars on GitHub, it’s practically impossible to “delete” from the internet.
- It’s not a website: Unlike typical “stream ripping” sites that can be blocked by a URL, yt-dlp is software that lives on users’ machines.
- The target is personal: The IFPI even went as far as naming specific developers by their GitHub handles.
The EU will eventually decide if yt-dlp makes the cut for the 2027 Watch List. For now, it’s a classic David vs. Goliath standoff: a handful of developers versus the entire global music machine.