Filed under: Video, News, Yahoo!
Yahoo! sends Spanish software blog cease-and-desist
Last week the Spanish software blog Genbeta posted a tutorial for downloading videos from Yahoo! Launch with VLC and were promptly hit with a cease and desist letter from Yahoo! Spain. Not having a legal budget, Genbeta opted to take the post down, but the original is cached by Yahoo! (Google translation here). If you know Spanish you can read the original letter, and we'll give a shiny gold star to the first person who can offer up a reasonably good translation.
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris said 3:55PM on 9-06-2005
Working on one now, my spanish is rough but it should be good enough to pick this apart.
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Chris said 4:20PM on 9-06-2005
This is a small multiplatform tutorial to unload videos of Yahoo! Launch.
Needed ingredients:
- The ID of the video that you want to unload (we will explain how to obtain it)
- The VLC Player (available for several S.O.)
In order to obtain the mentioned one ID, we must fix the structure of the connections, or putting the mouse on them or, if it does not show up, opening the menu of the right click on the Link and seeing properties.
We can have different formats:
javascript:playVideos(xxIxDxx)
..http://launch.yahoo.com/video/xxIxDxx
Once we have this, we go with ID to this page and we introduce it in the textbox at the bottom. It will give the URL to of versions of 56K, 128K and 300K. The one that interests to us is the 300K mms: .
Now we opened the VLC and we go to File>Open Network Stream.
We selected the option HTTP/FTP/MMS/RTSP. Put the URL that previously we have copied (mms:). Exit the window.
Next we do this in Options.
Now we marked Archive, where in addition we will put the file name which we want that it is created always finished in WMV and entrance of overturned raw.
We give to Ok in both screens and the VLC it will begin to work as if it was reproducing, but what it is doing is unloading the video to the location that we have indicated.
It is a pity that, at least in MAC OSX, VLC is not able to reproduce the image, but we will always have average Windows.
Notes: Mms is one of many methods to unload the file (managers of unloading, etc), but the interesting thing of this is that the VLC is for all the operating systems, with which the tutorial serves us to all.
If somebody messes with the options of transcoding and obtains something, share it in the commentaries.
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I couldn't find options in my VLC copy, so I didn't bother to get screenshots. You can see those at the cached link and that is enough to compare. It might have to do with the fact that I'm on XP and that tutorial was written on OSX....
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Chris said 4:26PM on 9-06-2005
Sorry, http://www.strix.org.uk/misc/launch.yahoo/launch_streams.php is the site you go to to get the different links to the streams. I forgot to do the HTML for that.
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Jeff Miller said 8:49PM on 9-06-2005
This was earlier on Digg.com with a link to Uneasysilence. (Where the instructions are all in English).
http://www.uneasysilence.com/archive/2005/08/4002/
http://digg.com/music/Download_music_videos_from_Yahoo_Launch_with_VLC
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Brian P said 11:45PM on 9-06-2005
Oh the irony - Yahoo sends a C&D to a site, but Yahoo itself has the information cached and viewable. Classic.
Brian
http://myvogonpoetry.com
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keith coutinho said 5:24AM on 9-07-2005
LoL in yahoo's cache!!!
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Adrian said 8:23AM on 9-08-2005
I think you're asking for a translation of the letter, since im spanish and im subscribed i got that old article on my rss reader :) so screw you yahoo... besides, i prefer the xbmc yahoo launch script ;)
Dear Sir:
I contact you on behalf of Yahoo Iberia LS, on regards of your web page, available at the URL http://www.genbeta.com . As you will know, Yahoo! is an internet leader company that drags millions of usuers daily and which offers amongst other services , the service Yahoo! Music. Yahoo is owner of the international registered brand which is used to identify different services and products Yahoo!.
Yahoo! Music offers its users the chance to access to a wide catalogue of music videos through "streaming" system , which is the communication to the public of the videos just for the listening without the user being able to download the video on his terminal.
Well, Yahoo! has adknowledged the existance of your webpage and that through itself , precisely in the URL (url here) you can acces to an article where you explain detailed the procedure to deceive the system Yahoo! uses to offer its users those videos and be able to download them to a termina. In that article you also display Yahoo! Music logo without authorization which can wrongly induce the reader that Yahoo! backups the article content in any way.
In fact, the truth is that the article is an importante prejudice for our company, because it induces our users the most absolute confusion about the characteristics of the services being offered by Yahoo! and also infringes our Conditions of Use, which forbid terminately conducts that , like this, may be an infraction of the Intelectual and Industrial Property rights that Yahoo! and third parties have. Because of this and in order to avoid bigger prejudices we ask you to deactivate the link in a period of time no longer than 24 hours.
Anyways, Yahoo! has the intention of solving this case extrajudicially but if in the period of time above mentioned the link remained active, we would have to take legal measures , with all the prejudices that it has , decission we would be the first to be sorry at.
Waiting for you reply, I take the opportunity to greet you kindly.
SOMEONE / Law firm
www.yahoo.es encatala.yahoo.com
SOMEONE@es.yahoo-inc.com ID Yahoo!
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Fatal Fury said 2:58PM on 4-07-2007
I have also translated the letter. Not to step on the toes of the person above me. Just another translation (because these things are never formulaic).
Dear Sirs:
I am contacting you in the name of Yahoo Spain, regarding your web page, available at the URL http://www.genbeta.com. As you know, Yahoo! is a internet leader that attracts millions of users daily and offers, among other services, the Yahoo! Music service. Yahoo! is, likewise, the proprietor of an internationally recognized registered trademark, which is used to identify different Yahoo! products and services.
Yahoo! Music offeres its users the possibility of access to an ample catalog of streaming music videos, which are made available to the public merely for listening, without the possiblity of the user downloading the video file to his or her computer.
Now then, Yahoo! has had knowledge of the existence of your web page, at the same address, located exactly at the URL http://www.genbeta.com/archivos/2005/09/01-como-descargar-videos-de-yah.php,
one can access an article that explains in detail a process that intentionally uses the Yahoo! service in a deceptive way and other than it was intended to be used, namely enabling users to download said videos to their computers.
However, the reality is that said article generated grave damage to our company, inducing our users to absolute confusion regarding the specifics of the services offered by Yahoo!, as well as infriging on our Terms of Service, which prohibits end user behavior that, like this, could consitute an infraction of Intellectual and Industrual Property rights that Yahoo! and other third parties display. For that reason, and to avoid greater damage, we urge you to disable said link within the time frame of 24 hours.
In any case, Yahoo! intends to resolve the question extrajudicially, but if the time window mentioned above passed and the link continues to be active, we are obligated to take whatever legal action necessary, with all the damages it entails, a decision that we would be the first to regret.
Our regards,
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Cosimo said 5:33AM on 9-10-2005
Publicity for Genbeta... good job Yahoo!
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