yea, I've been using one as well. More just to streamline the process than anything, a lot of my stuff I listen to is only available on youtube, and I'm not much of an audiophile so it doesn't bother me any.
But it's odd that they are getting rid of them entirely. It's not like it's outside of their power to limit what those can download. the one I used for instance would only allow use on videos using "standard youtube license", and would refuse to work on anything with any more strict license.
All they need to do is let general users choose a license that is the standard license in all respects when uploading, but does not allow MP3 download with those services. That way the uploader has control over whether their audio can be downloaded with one of those tools. If they don't care, like the uploaders of the majority of the music I got off youtube myself don't, set it to the standard youtube license and it's free to rip. If they do, set it to the restricted. There, problem solved. Hell if youtube didn't want to default to rippable just make a new licence that allows it and disallow on the standard instead, easy. Best part is that it uses infrastructure already present.
Instead it seems they are just forcing all their users to do it manually, which might stop maybe 5% of them with how simple it is, in trade for everyone else learning how to do it manually, which bypasses every single prevention they already have built in and could feasibly build in the future.
One of the things that annoys me most about it is that the people doing all the work on Youtube probably know this, but are forced to take orders from people who don't, and won't listen when told.
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Topic: Google is shutting down Youtube to mp3 services. (Read 2563 times)