Google's lawyers have sent a legal letter to TubeNinja, a website for downloading YouTube content in the form of various video or audio file formats.

All users know these sites, and at one point or another, we have all used them to download content from YouTube, most of the time in the form of songs not yet available in our countries.

TubeNinja is just one name in a sea of similar services that allow users to copy-paste a URL and then save the file to their computer, effectively committing theft of copyrighted material if the video is not under a permissive license.

Google acting at the behest of music labels

Since a vast majority of these files are music videos, you can imagine the pressure on Google's head when it comes to badgering music labels that want something like this stopped.

So it comes as no surprise that, during the past week, the team at TubeNinja received a letter from YouTube's legal team, asking them to cease all activities related to the company's content.

The letter, which TorrentFreak obtained a copy of, was very specific and said the service was violating YouTube's terms of service, along with the YouTube API ToS. Failure to comply would no doubt lead to a legal action.

TubeNinja doesn't care, would welcome a lawsuit

Unfortunately for Google, the TubeNinja team knows its way around the block and has pointed Google's lawyers to its own terms of service, where they wrote black on white that users bear the entire responsibility for how they use the service.

Furthermore, the NinjaTube team has also pointed out to Google that they don't use the YouTube API at all, and that if Google were serious about removing "YouTube downloaders," it would first start with its Chrome Web Store, where multiple Chrome extensions provide the same service, right under Google's nose.

The company says they don't plan to shut down operations, and they think they would actually have a strong case if Google decides to go to court.

Google's fight against YouTube downloaders didn't end well the last time the company tried to pull a similar stunt in 2012, when the Youtube-mp3.com service survived unscathed.