
Ask HN: Is it illegal to use another site mp4 link in my app? - lesvizit
Hi,<p>I know that YouTube explicitly forbid the re-use of the video link. However, I am wondering if this is a general rule. For instance, I can get the link of a video on the ABC site (a public video). They offer HTML embed code but I would rather use the MP4 link for my app does not use a webview container. So can they contact Apple and ask my app to be retired from the store?
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chrisBob
You need to make sure you know the licensing of all of the content in an App
that you don't produce yourself. Just because something is "a public video"
doesn't mean you can use it. Putting it in an App will likely count as
copyright infringement, and you are liable for damages. They could ask Apple
to remove your App, and the could also ask for $10 for each time someone
downloaded the app that included their content.

In the US, the author (or artist) owns the copyright to all content they
create unless they specifically state otherwise. Even most "free" content on
the web has a clause that you must credit the source, so you can be liable for
infringement of creative commons content that would otherwise be ok to use
without payment.

An App, even a free one, would probably be considered commercial use, so the
content available to you is smaller, and the penalties for use are larger. You
should be careful.

I am not a lawyer, and you probably don't need to talk to one every time you
need to go looking for content for an App, but you should be sure that all of
the resources you use are licensed correctly.

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Spoom
This would be a question for a copyright lawyer.

My unenlightened guess would be that you would be breaking the terms of
service of the website, and if you argued that you "never agreed" to the terms
of service, then you didn't have a license to use the media anyway, so you
would be infringing copyright.

