People have been stealing music and movies for many generations.
But after entertainment went digital through streaming services like Spotify (SPOT) -), the hope from the industry was that stealing and peer-to-peer sharing would abate.
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Instead young music and movie fans are increasingly turning to more sophisticated methods to get their entertainment for free.
According to IFPI's annual Engaging With Music survey from 2021, about 30% of all respondents streamed music illegally, and 27% of all respondents used stream ripping to get their music.
Stream ripping software allows people to save data streams from websites like Youtube and place them on hosting websites where they can be downloaded by the masses.
The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been particularly vocal about the practice as Youtube has become a popular place to stream rip music.
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But while nearly a third of all music listeners reported stealing music, 38% of young people aged 16-24 admitted to stealing, and 35% used stream ripping to do so.
The amount of stealing stayed steady year-over-year in the 2022 survey, but the popularity among the 16-24 year old crowd jumped. In 2022, 43% of 16-24 year olds admitted to stealing music and 40% said they used stream ripping to do it.
Based in Germany, youtube-dl was taken down in August after a notice was filed — by the RIAA — against web hosting provider Uberspace in March. Youtube-dl was one of the most popular sites from which to download pirated Youtube content.
Stateside, popular web hosting service Github — which is owned by Microsoft (MSFT) -) — and digital rights group EFF filed briefs supporting another stream-ripping site Yout.com as part of its own legal battle with the RIAA over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The DMCA is a part of the U.S. Copyright Law that relates to the process for removing content from the internet. The act is at the crux of the argument for organizations like the RIAA as they battle to tamp down on a form of stealing that is now becoming more popular for a younger generation.
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