In the large family of tools for pirating protected content, YouTube rippers are probably among the most devastating. These sites, which allow you to retrieve an audio or video file from their link, are generally easier to access and use than torrenting or illegal streaming. They are therefore not particularly cherished by the rights holders, nor by the platform itself. It is therefore not surprising that these sites are targeted by hundreds of takedown requests (the famous DMCA notices) and other legal measures.
Google in no rush to act
Much more surprisingly, these illicit sites in turn turn to Google to complain about unfair competition. According to TorrentFreak, two of them, MP3Juices and YTMP3, are in this case. These services managed by the same operator have seen their “official” versions severely downgraded due to the multiple complaints to which they are subject. Except that at the same time, smart guys were hijacking their name to generate easy traffic. These copiers are now found higher than the originals in search results.
22 URLs are thus in the viewfinder of a DMCA notification sent to protect MP3Juices and YTMP3. “We demand the immediate removal of all infringing URLs from the Google index and help protect our copyrights”, can we read there. A rather cheeky request that seems to leave Google perplexed. A week after the request, most of the URLs are indeed still online.