Whack-a-mole indeed! Now that I know about this, and many others do, we will all go and download the python library from alternative sites such as this one, while it is still up:
https://gitlab.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dlI understand their point is to get rid of a central "repository" where all different downloaders get their core code and update whenever YouTube changes something (so each developer doesn't have to reinvent the wheel each time) but they will just find a hidden way to distribute it. Or you will have 10 other public "forks" pop up that stay below RIAA's radar.
This reminds me of the whole fiasco where computer makers started to disable the internal "loop-back" for audio stereo-mix recording so that you couldn't record off the "output" stream... say if you are playing audio on your computer. The older computers could do that, but the newer computers drivers were forced by RIAA presumably to disable this. What a load of wankers!
"Details of Dell's surreptitious collusion with RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) have emerged. Apparently, the computer manufacturer disabled the Stereo Mix/Mono Mix/Wave Out sound recording function on certain notebooks to assuage RIAA. The hardware functionality is being disabled without any prior notice and one blogger has even alleged that he was asked by Dell's customer support staff to [shell] out $99 if he desired the stereo mix option. Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning."Now there are 3rd party "virtual patch cable" drivers that let you screw around again with the internal audio stream paths, but really? Do you think RIAA actually did anything to thwart piracy? I believe the music industry is going towards streaming subscriptions... few people will buy physical media, or buy a digital download. Most people will pay some monthly fee to have access to a large library of content and just listen to streams as needed.
The times are changing and artists and labels need to adapt. RIAA's policy has been to spam-litigate and now with repos becoming hidden away, it will be tougher for them to find infringement. Nobody uses peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Kazaa and Napster anymore. Torrents are also going bye-bye. That means they can't stick a fake node in the network and lift people's IP's. Stuff is getting squirrelled away in online storage boxes where they encrypt the contents so that even the companies running these sites can't figure out what's hidden there. But RIAA is tasked to do *something* so they have to go after whatever is the "lowest hanging fruit".
As always, I advocate supporting artists directly for their work. I like places like Bandcamp because there are smaller emerging artists on there and more of your money goes directly to them. Volunteering at a radio station in my college days I had access to the "demo recycling bin" where every week, hundreds of recordings would land and be prime for the pickings. I picked up so many great professional amazing recordings by artists who never became "big" and dropped off the radar for any one of a number of different reasons (none of which was due to the quality of the music itself). Music industry is a fickle one, where many other factors push some artists to the front and keep others hidden behind. I can't stand commercial radio because of this, not to mention pay-for-play or "payola" that was rampant in the past (and I'm sure they found another way to do it today that finds a loophole around this illegal practice). For every "mainstream" artist you can find 10 other talented ones that make amazing stuff.
What the large labels pick up is usually the result of many years of development, promotion, investment, touring and various other antics to increase an act's popularity, or commercial promotion and priming of the market by the likes of American Idol and other such venues, or instant YouTube stardom by someone already in the industry whose influence is being applied on what they see as "the next hit". Thus, many others who have interesting music but are missing the "stage performance" or "image" aspect remain in the shadows.