

However, the court did say that companies may be liable if they bypass technological barriers imposed by a website. And that's where it got hairy: the company fully intended to let users access their Facebook data through .įacebook claimed that Power was accessing Facebook's service "without permission." The court found that position dangerous, though-it would be a racket to establish a precedent that basically says companies can sue you for criminal conduct if you break their terms of service. The aim was to create a one-stop shop for all things social media and networking. The foundation cited a 2008 lawsuit between Facebook and Power Ventures, a company that formerly operated the domain and used it to host a website that helped users aggregate data about themselves from their social media sites. That's because the unpaid, ad-based service doesn't have a download option on videos, but Premium subscribers do have the option online and in the native app.īut is it actually illegal to break a company's terms of service? According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco-based nonprofit focused on digital rights, that would be a big, fat resounding nope. That's basically a fancy way of saying that you can't download videos unless you subscribe to YouTube Premium.

In YouTube's terms of service, for example, the company notes that users aren't supposed to download any content hosted on the site unless there is a designated "download" link displayed. copyright law, which is a bit more nuanced. There are two sides to this dilemma: YouTube's own terms of service, which make it seem nearly impossible to download a video without paying for a premium service, and U.S.
