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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

#201

Post by zahlman »

Noteworthy to me: deno is MIT licensed, but PyPI distributions (at least the ones I checked) include neither license nor source code. It's normal for pre-built distributions ("wheels") to contain only the Python code (which for a project like this is just a small bootstrap used to find the compiled executable — it doesn't appear to be providing any Python API), but they should normally still have a LICENSE file.

It's also common to have the non-Python (here, Rust) source in source distributions ("sdists"), but this project's sdist is only a few kilobytes and basically functions as a meta-package (and also includes no license info). It "builds" Deno by detecting the platform, downloading a corresponding zip from the GitHub releases page, extracting the standalone Rust executable, and then letting Hatchling (a popular build tool in the Python ecosystem) repackage that in a wheel.

Update: It turns out that the Python package is published by a third party, so I submitted an issue (https://github.com/manzt/denop/issues/1) to ask about the licensing.

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

#202

Post by stronglikedan »

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

I recently got paused for "watching on another device" when I wasn't. I don't think that policy you mention is too far off.

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

#203

Post by observationist »

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.…

ReVanced and other alternatives exist.

So long as they are broadcasting media to the public without an explicit login system, so as to take advantage of public access for exposure, it will remain perfectly legitimate and ethical to access the content through whatever browser or software you want.

After they blitzed me with ads and started arbitrarily changing features and degrading the experience, I stopped paying them and went for the free and adblocking clients and experience.

I may get rid of phones from my life entirely if they follow through with blocking third party apps and locking things down.

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

#204

Post by Aurornis »

est wrote: post #16

I really appreciate the engineering effort went into this "JavaScript interpreter" https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/2025.09.23/yt_dlp/jsin...

This is perfect for the problem they were solving. Really cool that they took it this far to avoid adding further overhead.

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

#205

Post by zahlman »

the_af wrote: post #93
femtozer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also pay for YouTube Premium, but I still use ReVanced on my smartphone just to disable auto-translation. It’s absolute madness that users can’t configure this in the official app.

The auto-dub feature is madness. I noticed it first a couple of days ago, I'm crossing my fingers that few authors choose to enable it, and that YouTube makes it easy to disable as a default in settings (not currently possible, you have to do it as you watch, every time). I'm in a Spanish speaking country, but I want to watch English videos in English. Auto-generated subtitles for other languages are ok, but I want t…

> Auto-generated subtitles for other languages are ok, but I want to listen to the original voices!

The first time I saw this feature, it was on a cover of some pop song in a foreign language. Why on Earth... ?

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

#206

Post by smiley1437 »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #165

A friend of mine recorded a YouTube video using OBS. She had to do some minor edits on it and could not use her system during the recording, but it worked. I told her to stop it, as that is infringing on the creator's copyright and is an assault on the nation's digital economy. She hasn't recorded a video since, at least not that I know about. I feel good about making sure YouTube can reasonably profit off of creator…

Instructions on Vine-glo grape concentrate during prohibition: "Do not place the liquid in this jug and put it away in the cupboard for twenty-one days, because then it would turn into wine."

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

#207

Post by nananana9 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #149
wraptile wrote: post #58

Days of just getting data off the web are coming to an end as everything requires a full browser running thousands of lines of obfuscated js code now. So instead of a website giving me that 1kb json that could be cached now I start a full browser stack and transmit 10 megabytes through 100 requests, messing up your analytics and security profile and everyone's a loser. Yay.

Do you know what Accelerate means? I want them to go overboard. I want BigTech to go nuts on this stuff. I want broken systems and nonsense. Because that’s the only way we’re going to get anything better.

If you showed me the current state of YouTube 8 years ago - multiple unskippable ads before each video, 5 midrolls for a 10 minute video, comments overran with bots, video dislikes hidden, the shorts hell, the dysfunctional algorithm, .... - I would've definitely told you "Yep, that will be enough to kill it!"

At this point I don't know - I still have the feeling that "they just need to make it 50% worse again and we'll get a competitor," but I've seen too many of these platforms get 50% worse too many times, and the network effect wins out every time.

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

#208

Post by Aurornis »

nikcub wrote: post #94

Just the other day there was a story posted on hn[0][1] that said YouTube secretly wants downloaders to work. It's it's always been very apparent that YouTube are doing _just enough_ to stop downloads while also supporting a global audience of 3 billion users. If the world all had modern iPhones or Android devices you'd bet they'd straight up DRM all content [0] https://windowsread.me/p/best-youtube-downloaders [1] h…

That conspiracy theory never even made sense to me. Why would anyone think that a payment and ad-supported content platform secretly wants their content to be leaked through ad and payment free means?

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

#209

Post by kccqzy »

eitau_1 wrote: post #104
sharperguy wrote: post #68

Why can youtube not just give a micropayments backed API? Just charge a few cents per video download and be done with it.

meanwhile Youtubers: a penny per view would be 10x what Youtube pays us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nloigkUJ-U&t=4851s

The YouTube RPM (revenue per mille) strongly depends on the location of the audience and the topic of the video. It could be anywhere from $0.5 to $20. That 10x figure could very well be true for that YouTuber, but it's also true that other YouTubers already earn more than a penny per view.

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

#210

Post by codedokode »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #144
mtrovo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, it's really hard to blame them. In a way, the next couple of years are going to be a battle to balance easy access to info with compensation for content creators. The web as we knew it before ChatGPT was built around the idea that humans have to scavenge for information, and while they're doing that, you can show them ads. In that world, content didn't need to be too protected because you were making up…

Don’t worry! Ads are coming to AI. The big AI push next will be context, your context all the time. Your phone will “help” and get all your data to OpenAI… “It looks like you went for a run today? Good job, you deserve a treat! Studies show a little ice cream after a long run is effectively free calories! It just so happens the nearest Dairy Queen is running a promotion just for the next 30 minutes. I’m getting you d…

It would not be that much of a problem if ads promoted healthy and tasty food but they will probably promote an ice-cream made from a powder and chemicals emulating taste of berries rather than from milk and fresh-picked berries.
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