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Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

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Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#61

Post by transcriptase »

codedokode wrote: post #54
ACCount37 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.

>AI companies

Like Google?

>scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data

Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades?

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#62

Post by ac29 »

piyuv wrote: post #9

I’m a paying YouTube premium subscriber. Last weekend, I wanted to download something so I can watch it on my way in the train. The app got stuck at “waiting for download..” on my iPad. Same on iPhone. Restart did not work. I gave up after an hour (30 mins hands on trying stuff, 30 mins waiting for it to fix itself). Downloaded the video using yt-dlp, transferred it to my USB c flash drive, and watched it from that.…

> Awaiting their “premium cannot be shared with people outside household” policy so I can finally cancel

That's been a policy for a while, the sign up page prominently says "Plan members must be in the same household".

No idea if its enforced though.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#63

Post by supriyo-biswas »

ACCount37 wrote: post #49
Andrews54757 wrote: post #30

Nsig/sig - Special tokens which must be passed to API calls, generated by code in base.js (player code). This is what has broken for yt-dlp and other third party clients. Instead of extracting the code that generates those tokens (eg using regular expressions) like we used to, we now need to run the whole base.js player code to get these tokens because the code is spread out all over the player code. PoToken - Proof…

If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

At least for YouTube, viewbotting is very much a thing, which undermines trust in the platform. Even if we were to remove Google ads from the equation, there’s nothing preventing someone from crafting a channel with millions of bot-generated views and comments, in order to paid sponsor placements, etc.

The reasons are similar for Cloudflare, but their stances are a bit too DRMish for my tastes. I guess someone could draw the lines differently.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#64

Post by beala »

piyuv wrote: post #9

I’m a paying YouTube premium subscriber. Last weekend, I wanted to download something so I can watch it on my way in the train. The app got stuck at “waiting for download..” on my iPad. Same on iPhone. Restart did not work. I gave up after an hour (30 mins hands on trying stuff, 30 mins waiting for it to fix itself). Downloaded the video using yt-dlp, transferred it to my USB c flash drive, and watched it from that.…

I'm also a premium subscriber, and have struggled with the same issues on the iPad app. I try to keep some shows downloaded for my toddler, and the download feature never seems to work on the first try.

I finally got so fed up, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 off ebay for $50 and flashed it with LineageOS. I can now load whatever media I want onto the 1 TB sdcard I've installed in it. The 5 year old hardware plays videos just fine with the VLC app. And, as a bonus, I discovered that NewPipe, an alternative YouTube client I installed through the F-Droid store, is actually much more reliable at downloading videos than the official client. I was planning on using yt-dlp to load up the sdcard, but now I don't even need to do that.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#65

Post by skydhash »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #56

What I found much more annoying, and so far have not been able to work around, is that yt-dlp requires you to have a YouTube account, something that I have not had for a decade or so, and am unwilling to create again. What tool can I use to simply store what my browser receives anyway, in a single video file?

It must be a pretty recent (as in added yesterday) addition, as I was watching youtube with mpv+yt-dlp.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#66

Post by Chris2048 »

codedokode wrote: post #54
ACCount37 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.

Who says these are valid?

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#67

Post by degamad »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #56

What I found much more annoying, and so far have not been able to work around, is that yt-dlp requires you to have a YouTube account, something that I have not had for a decade or so, and am unwilling to create again. What tool can I use to simply store what my browser receives anyway, in a single video file?

When did it start requiring one? It didn't require one the last time I used it a few months ago...

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#70

Post by maplethorpe »

piyuv wrote: post #9

I’m a paying YouTube premium subscriber. Last weekend, I wanted to download something so I can watch it on my way in the train. The app got stuck at “waiting for download..” on my iPad. Same on iPhone. Restart did not work. I gave up after an hour (30 mins hands on trying stuff, 30 mins waiting for it to fix itself). Downloaded the video using yt-dlp, transferred it to my USB c flash drive, and watched it from that.…

What video did you watch?
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