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Fair use exceptions don’t come automatically or cheap. Personally I think the API copyright case was absolutely devastating for little guys APIs have been deemed copyrightable. That’s the next question in software-related litigation (now that the whole question of API copyrightability has been settled, mostly in favour of the little guy since API re-implementation can fall under fair use): In the past few months, I noticed a considerable uptick in mentions of and references to the application, and Google probably noticed too. With Google trying ever harder to monetise the hell out of YouTube views, it was only a matter of time before it would go after Vanced. Vanced offered a great alternative for these people. YouTube with ads is a terrible user experience, so I pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of them, but obviously, not everyone has the means to do so, be it financially or because of some inane Google restriction. The most surprising thing for me is not that Google shut Vanced down, but that it took them this long. “We were asked to remove all references to ‘YouTube’, change the logo, and remove all links related to YouTube products,” says an admin from the Vanced team in a Discord message to The Verge. Google sent the Vanced owners a cease and desist letter recently, which has forced the developers to stop distributing and developing the app. The Vanced owners say they’ve had to discontinue the project “due to legal reasons.” While the app will continue to work for anyone who currently has it installed on Android, without any future updates it’s likely to stop working at some point soon. The creators of Vanced have revealed the project will be shut down in the coming days, with download links set to be removed. The popular Vanced YouTube app is being discontinued, after a legal threat from Google.
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