
Adobe claims rtmpdump 'can be used' to infringe - abl
http://www.chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/notice.cgi?NoticeID=25159
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lucumo
SourceForge has removed the homepage of the program, but Yahoo still has a
cached copy[1].

From the page: "A small dumper for media content streamed over the RTMP
protocol. Supplying an rtmp url will result in a dumped flv file, which can be
played/transcoded using ffmpeg/mplayer, etc. Download scripts for BBC's
iPlayer and hulu.com streams are included."

It seems like they chose to describe it as an infringement tool that can be
used for other things (debugging?) as well.

[1]
[http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=rtmpdump&...](http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=rtmpdump&u=sourceforge.net/projects/rtmpdump/&w=rtmpdump&d=XkmTI0xIS12y&icp=1&.intl=us)

~~~
DarkShikari
Are you implying that it is somehow illegal or "infringing" to dump a data
stream _being sent to your computer_ to a file?

I cannot imagine what insane logic could lead to such a conclusion. If we were
using this logic 20 years ago, VHS recorders would have been deemed illegal.

~~~
lucumo
_> Are you implying that it is somehow illegal or "infringing" to dump a data
stream being sent to your computer to a file?_

No, what I'm saying is that if you write a script to dump Hulu.com files and
advertise it on the main page of your project as a main feature of how you can
use it, you really shouldn't be surprised that people think the main use of
your program is to infringe.

~~~
DarkShikari
Again, how is that infringement?

 _They are sending you data_. You have the right to put it in a file. That is
not infringement.

If you aren't legally allowed to put it in a file, they weren't allowed to
send it to you, so Hulu is infringing, not you.

~~~
csbrooks
What's legal, especially under the DMCA, isn't defined by what you feel is
common sense, unfortunately.

~~~
DarkShikari
Indeed, it's not defined by common sense or (thank god) what you "feel is
right": it's defined by the law, which doesn't agree with such absurd concepts
as it being illegal to save data onto a disk.

Even the DMCA doesn't prevent that: it prevents bypassing certain types of
copy protection schemes. By your logic, the DMCA makes it illegal to dump a
DVD to your hard disc, which is categorically false: it is only illegal to
break the CSS encryption, not to dump the data. It is also not illegal to dump
the video data after it has left the decoder.

I suggest you do more reading on the legal system and its precedents
(particularly Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.) before
you attempt to comment on it.

Of course, this all applies to the US. Your mileage may vary in other
countries.

------
ZeroGravitas
A summary based on what I've read elsewhere:

rtmpdump is a stream recorder that can save videos streamed by Adobe Flash's
RTMP protocol

Adobe has a more "secure" version of that called RTMPE

surprise! it's not really secure. Analysis: <http://lkcl.net/rtmp/RTMPE.txt>

Quote: "the Adobe RTMPE algorithm tries to provide end-to-end secrecy in
exactly the same way that SSL provides end-to-end secrecy, but the algorithm
is subject to man-in-the-middle attacks, provides no security, relies on
publicly obtainable information and the algorithm itself to obfuscate the
content, and uses no authentication of any kind."

So the DMCA anti-circumvention provision makes this software illegal in the
US, even though the "protection" that has been circumvented is laughable.

Apparently that could be a basis for a challenge, i.e. nothing has been
circumvented as there is no protection there in the first place.

(Odd note: the examples of content that could be infringed are shows on a
British channel. As far as I'm aware this software is legal in the UK)

