RIP YouTube Ripping Site

Leading YouTube ripping site YouTube-MP3.org, is to shut down after agreeing a settlement with the RIAA in the states.

Major record labels took action against the German based site, which is the largest of its kind and is dedicated to stream ripping music- enabling users to enter a YouTube URL and download its corresponding MP3 audio file.

The operators of the site were unsurprisingly accused of infringing copyright, breaching YouTube’s terms of service in enabling users to convert videos to MP3s, with over 60 million monthly users.

The agreement includes an undisclosed payment and will conclude the copyright infringement lawsuit that was filed against YouTube-MP3.org in a California federal court last year. In the UK, the BPI had also put the stream-ripping site on formal notice of intended legal action. The owner of the site Philip Matesanz will be barred from  “knowingly designing, developing, offering, or operating any technology or service that allows or facilitates the practice” of stream ripping.

So called ‘Stream ripping’ is now the fastest growing form of music piracy, with recent research by the Intellectual Property Office and PRS for Music  revealing that 15% of adults in the UK regularly use such services, with 33% of them coming from the 16-24 age bracket. Overall usage of stream-ripping sites increased by 141.3% between 2014 and 2016. This is yet another chapter in how music got free- which is by the way, an excellent book by Stephen Witt that The Gen highly recommends you seek out.