A YouTube MP3 converter website shut down, but few others still remain

In the wake of its legal battle, a YouTube MP3 converter platform has been ordered by the court to shut down its operation. However, the platform is only one of the hundreds of other video converter websites which are all still operational.

Millions of users from around the world can no longer use YouTube-MP3.org (YTMP3) as the US District Court, Central District of California favoured the lawsuit filed by record labels against the website. In a court decision released obtained by TorrentFreak, Philip Matesanz, registered owner of YTMP3, has been ordered to shut down the stream ripping site and to pay an undisclosed amount of settlement fee.

Part of the decision is to turn over the YTMP3 domain to one of the complainants. Plaintiffs are members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), including Warner Music, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings and Sony Music Entertainment, among others.

YouTube-MP3.org allows users to extract the audio of clips from the video streaming platform using URLs. Millions of illegal downloads per month have been reported, while the site draws massive 60 million visitors per month making it one of the most visited websites on the internet.

As of this writing, the court decision has not been signed yet and the YTMP3 website remains open. YouTube has not yet commented on the matter.

Despite the lawsuit, which was filed in 2016, several stream ripping websites are still up and grinding. It remains unclear if the music association and record labels will also go after these sites. According to reports, the lawsuit is meant to scare off these ripping sites so they may be taken down sooner.