YouTube Goes After MP3 Conversion Site

Google is cracking down on a website that strips music from YouTube videos and converts it to playable MP3s, which violates the video-sharing site's terms of service.

The website, YouTube-MP3.org, received a cease-and-desist letter from Google, YouTube's parent company, and was given seven days to comply, according to TorrentFreak, which saw the letter.

"We have always taken violations of our Terms of Service seriously, and will continue to enforce these Terms of Service against sites that violate them," a YouTube spokesman said today.

At YouTube-MP3.org, users copy and paste a YouTube link and wait about three or four minutes for it to convert to a downloadable MP3. The site boasts software compatibility on a Mac, PC, or even iPhone, with bitrates of at least 128 kBit/s.

Google, for one, is not impressed. In a letter dated June 8, YouTube's associate product counsel, Harris Cohen, cited the company's API Terms of Service, which say that separating, isolating, or modifying audio or video components of any content is prohibited and could result in legal consequences, TorrentFreak reported.

The search giant has allegedly blocked YouTube-MP3.org's servers and its "tens of millions of users," from accessing the video site, according to site's owner, who has identified himself as only Philip. According to Philip, Google "doesn't just ignore" the roughly 200 million people worldwide using MP3-converting websites like his, but that "they are about to criminalize them."

:story: PC Magazine