The industry group said that the problem of stream-ripping has become so serious that in volume terms it had overtaken downloading from 'pirate' sites.
Given today's breaking news, the timing of the report was no coincidence.
Earlier today in a California District Court, a huge coalition of recording labels sued the world's largest YouTube ripping site.
UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, Arista Records, Atlantic Records and several others claim that YouTube-MP3 (YTMP3), owner Philip Matesanz, and Does 1-10 have infringed their rights.
The labels allege that YouTube-MP3 is one of the most popular sites in the entire world and as a result its owner, German-based company PMD Technologies UG, is profiting handsomely from their intellectual property.
YouTube-MP3 is being sued for direct, contributory, vicarious and inducement of copyright infringement, plus circumvention of technological measures.
Among other things, the labels are also demanding a preliminary and permanent injunction forbidding the Defendants from further infringing their rights.
They also want YouTube-MP3's domain name to be surrendered.
"YTMP3 rapidly and seamlessly removes the audio tracks contained in videos streamed from YouTube that YTMP3's users access, converts those audio tracks to an MP3 format, copies and stores them on YTMP3's servers, and then distributes copies of the MP3 audio files from its servers to its users in the United States, enabling its users to download those MP3 files to their computers, tablets, or smartphones," the complaint reads.
"Defendants are depriving Plaintiffs and their recording artists of the fruits of their labor, Defendants are profiting from the operation of the YTMP3 website.
Through the promise of illicit delivery of free music, Defendants have attracted millions of users to the YTMP3 website, which in turn generates advertising revenues for Defendants," the labels add.
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On another note Google has a new app, YouTube Go, designed to broaden the accessibility of the behemoth video-sharing service.
Designed and developed with Indian users in mind, who will be able to test the app first before a broader rollout,
YouTube Go is intended to work more effectively in areas where connectivity is more limited.
YouTube Go allows users to save videos for offline viewing, giving options over quality and file size so it's clear how much data a download will use.
The app also allows for local sharing with nearby users without using any data.
YouTube Go builds upon the Smart Offline feature that YouTube launched first in India earlier this year.
We’ve always believed that connectivity should not be a barrier to watching YouTube.
In 2014 we launched YouTube Offline so you could watch videos without suffering from buffering.
" A few months ago we rolled out Smart Offline, a feature that allows you to schedule videos to be saved offline later at off-peak times, when there’s more bandwidth so data is faster and cheaper.
But we realized that for the next generation of YouTube users to fully discover all that YouTube has to offer, we had to reimagine the YouTube mobile app from the ground up.
That’s why I and a team of engineers, designers, and researchers have been travelling to India, collecting ideas and testing prototypes with hundreds of people across 15 cities.
They’ve helped us build a brand new YouTube app that’s faster, more relevant, and more affordable, with innovative new features.
Meet YouTube Go: a new YouTube app built from scratch to bring YouTube to the next generation of viewers."
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