BasicTraveler

Bachelors in Computer Science… Never made the connection.

It’s software that lives in the hardware. It provides low-level control and functionality specific to that device. It runs on the hardware itself, not the CPU of the computer.

For example, a hard drive. We don’t want the OS to have to know how to interact with every type of hard drive. Seagate does things differently than Western Digital, an SSD works very different than a hard drive, etc… The OS sends the same commands to all types of hard drives, but each hard drive needs to know how to actually comply with the commands. If the OS is asking for a dozen different files all over the drive, it would be dumb to try and read them all at the same time. The OS doesn’t really know where they are on the spinning disk, but the drive does. Firmware written specifically for the device can do a much better job planing how to fetch the data so the read head doesn’t need to go back and forth a bunch of times, but instead make one good pass fetching all the data as it comes to it.

Hope that helps.

You can reach out to the EFF. They took an interest in youtube-dl. However you have a major hurdle to overcome:

RIAA argues that since youtube-dl could be used to download music owned by RIAA-member labels, no one should be able to use the tool, even for completely lawful purposes.

This is an egregious abuse of the notice-and-takedown system, which is intended to resolve disputes over allegedly infringing material online. Again, youtube-dl doesn’t use RIAA-member labels’ music in any way. The makers of youtube-dl simply shared information with the public about how to perform a certain task—one with many completely lawful applications.

--https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/riaa-abuses-dmca-take-down-popular-tool-downloading-online-video

IANAL but probably shouldn’t have video on the site showing it downloading copyrighted music. I think that’s the crux here.

https://www.eff.org/about/contact

Good luck, but I think you kinda shot yourself in the foot.

EDIT: if you read the complaint, it’s not for hosting content, it’s Anticircumvention. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 1201 (a)(2)

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

© is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

If you cherry pick the dates of comparison you can probably come up with 4000%

Check. Mate.