Saving Audiofiles From YouTube

Years ago, I bought an album, on cassette.
Due to personal differences, the artists will never release this again, in any format.
And my cassette broke.

But all the songs exist on YouTube.

Can I, legally copy this songs?

Also, where can I get a download of safe, free, software to do this with?

Attention Mods–
I bought a copy, so this would not be a copyright infringement.

Can’t speak to the legal issues but I use www.youtube-mp3.org. Just copy the youtube link over to that site and it’ll turn it into a downloadable mp3. Works like a charm.

From Youtube Terms of Service, 5 L

So according to this you can’t download anything from YT, all content must be streamed in real-time. But whether Terms of Service are legally binding that’s another question.

You know, cassettes can be repaired, either the cassette case or the tape itself. Google it.

Then, save it digitally.

A friend’s brother is an intellectual property attorney and this came up in conversation a few months ago. He said he reviewed the terms of service and because they say to those who upload content that their content might be downloaded by others that he thought it was OK to download YouTube content, or at least it was left ambiguous. (I may be oversimplifying his argument.)

On the other hand, I don’t buy the argument in the OP that since the music was purchased on cassette, downloading the content isn’t violating copyright, since the stuff online is almost certainly a higher quality recording.

How would one save a cassette digitally, anyway? :confused:

He’s just talking about ripping an MP3 from your cassette, which should be OK legally if I understand the current laws.

Run a cable from the headphone jack to a line/audio in jack on your sound card and find a program that can “rip” the cassette (or any program that record input from the audio card, if you don’t have one on your computer already, I’m sure there’s a ton of free ones).

There’s a whole bunch of Firefox extensions that will let you download Youtube videos.

Nitpick: This isn’t ‘ripping’ this is just capturing analog audio into a digital audio file. And because there’s no encryption involved the DMCA doesn’t apply, only laws regarding making copies, i.e. once you digitize it you’re not supposed to give copies away (this was also always true of analog CD-to-cassette copies as well).

Ripping means (for CDs) doing a direct bit-for-bit digital copy (at high speed) from the optical media (the CD) to your computer. Again, there is no violation of the DCMA because CDs are not encrypted (but are copyrighted, so you’re not supposed to churn out multiple copies). For DVDs it’s the same thing ***except ***it also includes decrypting them which is more complicated legally (I think you’re allowed to make one backup copy for yourself but you can’t give it away without including the original etc.) Anecdotally because sales of physical media, actual CD & DVD discs, are in such decline the laws regarding using ‘ripping’ software are very loosely enforced.

Capturing analog audio from a cassette player to a computer via a cable and an audio recording program is not incredibly difficult but it is tedious and kind of an audiophile thing (back in the day I did it many times). You have to do test recordings to get the volume on the cassette player just right and you have to do it in real time. BTW you don’t need any kind of special USB cable to do this, just a regular ⅛" dual male stereo cable like this. Make sure you plug it into the LINE IN jack on your computer, not the MIC jack.

Which is why I put rip in quotes.

I am not a lawyer–and man, I wish there were a shorter way to write that–but I’m not sure that having owned a cassette gives you the right to grab the audio off YouTube. In the days before YouTube, a broken LP or busted cassette didn’t give you the right to a new free album. Nor did a lost/stolen CD.

As for download extensions, these are being disabled for YT. I don’t know about FF, but in Safari and Chrome my YT downloaders have been made inoperable recently. There are ways around this but they are inconvenient or cost money (and I’m cheap). This is relevant to me not for the audio but for the video–I make documentaries and use YT video for reference and temporary coverage.

IANAL. x

Have you looked up the tape on Discogs?

Perhaps you could buy another copy for cheap, and make a digital rip from that one.

There were 2500 copies made.
in the 80s.
So, no.

Unless you bought a copy of the You Tube video you wish to copy, I would rethink that position.

Does the music’s “abandoned” status change the legality at all?

On the one hand, there is no prospect for this listener to shell out $150 for the upcoming boxed set.

On the other hand, someone still owns the copyright (I assume), and they could someday want to re-release, maybe for our genetically enhanced ape rulers…

I don’t think that the “abandoned” status changes anything legally. It’s still under copyright.

If you want to download a YouTube video to your computer, just put an “ss” before the “youtube.com” in the URL.

For example, http: //www.ssyoutube.com/blahblahblah

No, I just wanted the audio.