Google lawyers have sent a subpoena to TubeNinja, a website that allows downloading YouTube content in the form of various video or audio file formats.
Almost most users are aware of these types of websites and most have used them to download content from YouTube, even if they are not available in their countries.
TubeNinja website in a sea of similar services that allow users to copy-paste a URL and then save the file of their choice to their computer, which legally constitutes theft of copyrighted material if the video is not under a specific license.
Given that the vast majority of these files are music videos, you can imagine the pressure Google is under. So it's no surprise that over the past week, the TubeNinja team received a letter from YouTube's legal team, asking them to cease all activities related to downloading files.
The letter was very specific and stated that the website was violating YouTube's terms of service and APIs, and emphasized that non-compliance would undoubtedly lead to legal action.
TubeNinja's response to all of this is that it doesn't use YouTube's APIs and that users are fully responsible for how they use the service. It also says that if Google was really interested in banning video downloads, it should have started with the Chrome Web Store first, where multiple Chrome extensions provide the same service, right under Google's nose.
Google's battle against YouTube download services has a history, with the company attempting a similar trick in 2012 against Youtube-mp3.com, which failed.
