World’s largest ‘streamripping’ site YouTube-mp3.org shuts down: Here’s why
The most popular “streamripping” site, in which millions of users have converted YouTube videos into audio files, shut down faced with a legal campaign by the music industry.
YouTube-mp3.org, a site in Germany started in the bedroom of computer science student Philip Matesanz, was inaccessible on Thursday with no further message.
The global recorded music industry group IFPI, along with its US and British affiliates, announced that the platform had closed and that a US court has issued an injunction on its activities.
The industry groups, in turn for not taking further legal action, said that YouTube-mp3.org’s operator has agreed not to infringe on copyrights in the future.
YouTube-mp3.org — which music industry representatives said had 60 million visitors a month and accounted for more than 40 percent of global streamripping — allows users to transform music on YouTube into downloadable files of the sort purchased on iTunes.
The music industry said that streamripping had grown by 50 percent in the United States between 2013 and 2015, despite the success in persuading listeners to pay for licensed music through streaming sites such as Spotify.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry trade body, said that the site “wasn’t just ripping streams, it was ripping …read more
