this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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YouTube pulled a popular tutorial video from tech creator Jeff Geerling this week, claiming his guide to installing LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5 violated policies against "harmful content." The video, which showed viewers how to set up their own home media servers, had been live for over a year and racked up more than 500,000 views. YouTube's automated systems flagged the content for allegedly teaching people "how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content."

Geerling says his tutorial covered only legal self-hosting of media people already own -- no piracy tools or copyright workarounds. He said he goes out of his way to avoid mentioning popular piracy software in his videos. It's the second time YouTube has pulled a self-hosting content video from Geerling. Last October, YouTube removed his Jellyfin tutorial, though that decision was quickly reversed after appeal. This time, his appeal was denied.

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[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 161 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This kind of crap is driving popular creators, like Geerling, to move to other places. YT / Alphabet has lost the plot.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 60 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Yep. Most of my favorite creators are on Nebula now.

The ones that aren't get watched on SmartTube or in Brave Browser.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I love Nebula. I go there to watch Nebula Exclusives but it's not great for browsing or discovering new channels...I found everyone I subscribe to on YouTube first

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Hypocritical Lemmy.... Preaching (F) OSS and then using Brave.... LoL!

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 101 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sue YouTube. They won't change meaningfully until forced to.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 83 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sue for defamation that Youtube are alleging he is promoting criminal activity of piracy.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean maybe if YT said that? The only thing they said is that it's "harmful" somehow. And they won't elaborate anymore than that.

[–] sorghum@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If harmful isn't defined in the ToS, then the Merriam Webster definition will likely be construed to mean to be harmful to YouTube's business or to users. Although YouTube has been selective in this enforcement, ie not banning all videos pertaining to martial arts or fighting clips, drug use, or ad block tutorials.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That just answers a question that no one is asking. This is not an issue of defining words, it's an issue of what the words are referring to, exactly.

[–] sorghum@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Exactly, I haven't read the ToS to see if it is defined or references anything in there. I usually default to the standard definition of a word unless explicitly stated otherwise. For example, Sony changed the definition of purchase to remove any notion of ownership when buying content on their streaming platform.

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[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Like google, I'm sure Jeff has a near unlimited supply of money to pay lawyers.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 76 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

“how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content.”

In the future, public domain media will be banned for harming corporate profits.

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[–] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 72 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Notably, Youtube does not consider exploiting children for profit harmful.

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Because there is profit in child exploitation.

[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 15 points 1 week ago

Harmful is just code for "threatens the bottom line of multibillion dollar companies". There is no relation to anything that matters to real people.

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 60 points 1 week ago

They are so pissed that we dare own anything. Fuck corpos.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 32 points 1 week ago

Google should have been broken up years ago.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Maybe stop relying on fucking youtube?

[–] Zwrt@lemmy.sdf.org 22 points 1 week ago

Are you suggesting that a guide on how to leave youtube should be elsewhere?

Thats like requiring to pass an exam to get access to the textbook.

[–] itslola@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

Who, Jeff? He made a whole video a while back about how he doesn't rely on YouTube, and is also on Floatplane. However, he acknowledges that a lot of viewers can't afford a subscription service, and YT has a massive reach, so he still uploads there, too.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago

Gotta preach where the choir is.

[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Perhaps this can a driver of sorts for Peertube.

It's a good thing that I can't stand video tutorials or reviews (with the exception of video games).

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[–] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 week ago (5 children)

you say in the video that you use this setup to watch YouTube. I love watching YouTube with Kodi as it shows no ads. I guess they don't love that.

I'm not saying that justifies the strike, but it might be connected

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[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 16 points 1 week ago (4 children)

JG can also be found on Floatplane.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

People are quick to burn Youtube here when its clearly the american copyright reach that causes this.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 34 points 1 week ago

YouTube took down the video because of its own policies, not because of copyright law. So we should be blaming YouTube.

I think it's easy to see exactly why if you consider how YouTube treats small content creators. If I post a video and companies claim copyright on it, the video gets demonetized and I might lose my account. I can respond and contest the claim and maybe I can win but I still lost money in the meantime, and perhaps more significantly, the companies that made their copyright claims will never face a consequence for attempting to burn my channel. In other words, if I get things wrong a few times I'll lose my channel and my income source, but if they get things wrong a million times, they face zero consequence.

And you might be inclined to blame the media companies. But again, this is YouTube doing what YouTube wants to do of its own volition, and not something that's required by law. If YouTube valued small-scale content creators and end users, it would create different policies.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 7 points 1 week ago

Youtube (under Google)'s implementation of US copyright considerations is a huge problem above and beyond the abomination that is the copyright law itself.

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[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Because self hosting is getting cheaper and easier while average internet upload speeds are crazy high for the home user. Of course Google is scared.

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[–] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 week ago

Everyone who is capable of hosting a peertube instance should do so, even if it's just to host your own content. I know, "it will never replace youtube" but if as many people as possible use it and share bandwidth between each other we will at least have SOMETHING in terms of a youtube alternative.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Was it YouTube or someone else that reported him? I think YouTube is fully automated so it blocked him and is ignoring appeal because of the previous complaint.

[–] oz1sej 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The video is up again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hFas54xFtg

But at some point, he shows he's moving some files to LibreELEC, and he has a folder called "Chernobyl" - how can that possibly be legal, if the folder actually contains files with the HBO show of the same name? Just asking because I'm curious 😊

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 33 points 1 week ago (5 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)

It was released on DVD and Blu-ray, if he purchased the disc and ripped it to his media, and hasn't shared those files with anyone, then it is legal, as an exception to copyright in the US, where Jeff and Google are both based.

Jeff has stated on multiple occasions that he purchases and rips his media, and does not use piracy.

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Also like… you can legally just name your file wtf ever you want, I can make a folder full of pics of my dogs and name it “Chernobyl” it’s not illegal to use a word to name a file

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[–] Mio@feddit.nu 12 points 1 week ago

You don't know the exact content of the files. He did not show those vidoeclips. I dont know if you can buy that or not. Sure it can be indication but in general you dont know as it varies between video to video if it is possible to buy.

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I think ripping DVDs is still technically illegal, even though CSS has long since been broken. It is still illegal to circumvent encryption in a copy protection scheme, even if it's for your own personal use and the encryption scheme has been pwned.

I bet if he didn't mention that his videos were ripped from DVD, they might have left it up.

[–] isgleas@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Iirc, you are entitled to have/create a backup of your physical media, as long as it is for your personal use.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But if I remember from back in the day, the DMCA doesn't have any exception for that. This is why CD ripping was legal, while DVD ripping was not. It had nothing to do with fair use or backups, but rather that DVDs have encryption, and CDs do not. Circumventing that encryption for any reason was illegal.

I don't think it has changed, but it's been a hot minute since the Cypherpunks all wore DeCSS T-Shirts....

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