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Tell HN: Google is deleting people's recorded TV shows from YouTube TV

28 points by josephcsible ↗ HN
Google just sent out this announcement about YouTube TV:

> We have been informed that G4TV is ceasing operations for all distributors. Starting November 9, 2022, the G4 channel will no longer be available on YouTube TV. You will also lose access to any previous Library recordings from this channel.

(emphasis mine)

Imagine if 20 years ago, whenever a TV channel went away, if they had sent goons to everyone's houses to rub magnets over everyone's VHS tapes of anything from that channel, to completely memoryhole it. How is this any different than that?

18 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 54.2 ms ] thread
smoldesu
> How is this any different than that?

Well, were the Library recordings stored on hardware that you owned?

melony
If US consumer protections don't improve, then you might end up with cases in future where the Apple TV box and Chromecast are not "owned" and merely indefinitely leased. This is how your debit and credit card works. You don't even "own" the physical card and they remain property of the issuing bank.
heavyset_go
That's exactly how the software on Apple TV and Chromecast devices are distributed. You already don't "own" the only software that can run on the devices, you're just granted a lease/license to use it in perpetuity. It's only a technicality that you "own" these devices.
EvanAnderson
Embedded devices where you don’t have complete access are already this way. Forcing the manufacturers to call it a lease instead of a sale would be an improvement.
JTBooth
My guess would be that "a recording" in this case is actually an internal URI pointing to the show plus a start and stop timestamp. If YouTube wanted to not destroy those "recordings" they'd have to find somewhere else to store all the data.

Is there a way to download the recordings?

DannyBee
It's almost certainly about legal rights, not about storage of data.
JTBooth
Half agree. Probably they no longer have the legal right to store (and serve) the data. Which means that they cannot serve the portion that is between your timestamps, which they called a "recording" for reasons.
DannyBee
This is almost always what the contract with a content provider requires, and the content owner won't give content to you without you agreeing.

I would be shocked if that wasn't the case here.

For a content provider, anything else would limit the number of times they can sell their catalog, etc, which they aren't willing to do.

Also, if the MPAA/et al hadn't lost in court a few decades ago, they 100% would have sent goons to erase your VHS tapes :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association

See the section on content protection efforts.

orev
There’s a big difference between preventing ongoing distribution of someone else’s content after a contract has ended, and deleting personal copies of that content. Labeling this as “library recordings” makes it pretty clear that anyone using that feature is expecting it to function like a personal recording. Otherwise why have that feature at all? Why not just rewatch the original episode instead of saving it to your personal library?

If one were to take personal recordings and start selling them, that’s a problem and we already have copyright law that addresses it.

taylodl
I would argue it's not a personal copy if it's stored on Google's servers.
sixothree
I don't use YouTube TV because I don't like supporting Fox News. Additionally, I only watch F1 so there's no reason for $10 of my YouTube TV subscription going to ESPN when I can just pay F1TV.com.

Also the interface is complete garbage.

JEDI-HACKER
Do you need Mummy's breast...
sixothree
I vote with my dollars. I don't want to give Fox News my money. And if that means not subscribing to something that has a garbage UI, then so be it.

Your insult makes you look small. Because you are.

JEDI-HACKER
The American Dollar is worth nothing. America is over 30 trillion Dollars in debt. So you buy your scams with your dust. Also my response wasn't an insult, it was the truth. Anyway all Americans are dumb as a cocktail stick. Us British and the Canadians cannot stand you annoying dunces.
robomartin
Nothing is recorded.

Users store a data structure in the list associated with their membership.

This data structure contains, among other things, a pointer to the content file or files as well as parameters on which episodes you watched, how long, etc.

The content is gone.

The data structure and the pointer become meaningless.

Google and others use the term "record" because the above explanation is incomprehensible to most users.

midislack
Imagine thinking it was YOUR recording. Now you know better - if you want to record something you need to actually record it onto a medium YOU control.
midoridensha
It's different because you don't physically have a recording here, Google does on their YouTube servers.

If you want to preserve stuff, you have to have your own copy. "youtube-dl" works really well here...

xwowsersx
Well I'm not saying I like it, but this is quite different. In the case of YouTube TV, the fact that you "recorded" something does not mean that it is now yours and that you "own" it. All it really means, I assume, is that you have so-to-speak bookmarked that show and perhaps received from Google a unique URI which enables you, so long as the show is available and you maintain your YouTube TV membership, to access that show. But it's still subject to all of the licensing terms related to that show as well as your ongoing membership to YouTube TV. You could not, for instance, sign up for YouTube TV and just record as many shows as you can get your hands on and expect that this means these recordings are now "yours" or that you now have access to all of these shows in perpetuity. In contrast, in the case of you recording something onto a VHS (assuming this is even legal), for someone to come into your house to scrub those tapes would amount to trespass, possibly theft, and other forms of illegal property destruction. So I would say it's quite different in several meaningful ways and that your hypothetical is pretty hyperbolic.