Dear NewPipe community and other beloved creatures, You might have already noticed this: Searching “NewPipe” via Google will yield plenty information about the project, but a link to the official website is missing. This is because Google submitted to a DMCA takedown notice from a French record label, “Because Music”. The notice demands removing our homepage newpipe.net from their search listings along with a set of other domains completely unrelated to our project. The DMCA takedown notice was published in the Lumen database by Google themselves. While worse things could have happened as the result of such a takedown request, Google’s unlisting of our homepage creates a variety of problems. Given the fact that Google no longer counts visits to our site, it will lose relevance. As a result, websites for fake clones of NewPipe that mimic our homepage will tend to rank higher in the results. This could ultimately cause users to fall for such scams. The team is currently discussing what to do about the situation. We are considering taking legal action. If you are a lawyer and have experience with this and would like to help us, please contact us via email (team(at)newpipe.net). Regards, Schabi
I would condemn Google; but it clearly states that a record label is targeting NewPipe; and not Google.
Is this a very chilling action for Google to take? You bet your ass it is! While I won’t blame them outright for this; it is now blatantly evident that Google has stopped spending legal money to defend against DMCA actions against things that they or their parent company Alphabet clearly do not like.
This is a blatant violation of Google and by extension Alphabet’s founding ethos; which is to “Do No Evil.” The ‘Enshittification of Alphabet’ has reared it’s ugly head again and it’s evident that is running through the company unchecked.
I recommend people continue to use projects like NewPipe, Invidious and Piped as well as federated alternates such as PeerTube. I would also urge all large creators to begin archival of their footage on PeerTube itself if possible and to look into spinning up a PeerTube instance for their content to be hosted ON…so that their content does not vanish with Youtube as it steadily “Enshitifies” itself to death. Do this now while the Youtube monetization train is still chugging so that you can get your fans onboard and willing to fund the instance so they don’t lose your content.
A note to creators: It will be easier to run off of Patreon and sponsors when on PeerTube; once Youtube has fallen.