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The point is that youtube-dl does more than just download videos. It can also be used for downloading metadata. I use -J to download metadata formatted as JSO

The point is that youtube-dl does more than just download videos. It can also be used for downloading metadata. I use -J to download metadata formatted as JSON.

boogies 6y ago
How much of that metadata is not normally downloaded alongside the video?
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Plenty of it? I regularly download the metadata and subtitles of entire channels or playlists so that I can search for specific words or phrases in thousands of hours of video. I know of no other way to accomplish this.
  - boogies 6y ago
    Subtitles are a perfect example of data that any normal browser downloads if you click CC, and can even be ^F'd if you click ‘Show Transcript’ on YouTube, but just happen to be orders of magnitude more useful if you control where they download to. I think you’re proving globular-toast’s point.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Subtitles are not video, so no. And I'd like to see you visit a thousand video pages with an RIAA approved browser and ^F on each of them. Nice joke!
      - hunter2_ 6y ago
        Why should subtitles and video be considered so discretely? Are subtitles not copyrighted the same way as the audio and video portions of the work?
        bigbubba 6y ago
        Beyond subtitles, there is certainly video metadata that youtube might have a claim on but the RIAA does not.
        sjy 6y ago
        The principles are essentially the same, but they are discrete copyrights which could be owned by different people.
  - cosmie 6y ago
    Thank you so much for writing this comment! I've been in several situations where this would have been incredibly handy, but never realized it was possible.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      `youtube-dl --write-sub --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download [URL]` (Then just use grep) There's all kinds of cool stuff you can do with youtube-dl. For example 'ytsearch20:kittens' will get a playlist of the first 20 search results for 'kittens'.
  - andrei_says_ 6y ago
    This sounds incredibly powerful. Wondering if c-span is on youtube and properly close captioned.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      According to their FAQ, c-span.org's search uses closed captioning to facilitate search (but they don't provide copies of those transcripts.) Perhaps that might suite your needs though.
lostcolony 6y ago
Is that metadata protected by some sort of mechanism? Or is it just not queried by default using one's browser? I.e., is youtube-dl calling a public, unsecured API, or is it circumventing some sort of copy protection? Because if it's just querying for metadata that anyone can already query for...your point seems immaterial as to the legality of the tool?
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  They're saying that sure, the name youtube-dl might well imply it's specifically for downloading things from YouTube, but that doesn't mean it's specifically for downloading video from YouTube.

The point is that youtube-dl does more than just download videos. It can also be used for downloading metadata. I use -J to download metadata formatted as JSON.

boogies 6y ago

How much of that metadata is not normally downloaded alongside the video?

bigbubba 6y ago
Plenty of it? I regularly download the metadata and subtitles of entire channels or playlists so that I can search for specific words or phrases in thousands of hours of video. I know of no other way to accomplish this.
- boogies 6y ago
  Subtitles are a perfect example of data that any normal browser downloads if you click CC, and can even be ^F'd if you click ‘Show Transcript’ on YouTube, but just happen to be orders of magnitude more useful if you control where they download to. I think you’re proving globular-toast’s point.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Subtitles are not video, so no. And I'd like to see you visit a thousand video pages with an RIAA approved browser and ^F on each of them. Nice joke!
    - hunter2_ 6y ago
      Why should subtitles and video be considered so discretely? Are subtitles not copyrighted the same way as the audio and video portions of the work?
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        Beyond subtitles, there is certainly video metadata that youtube might have a claim on but the RIAA does not.
      - sjy 6y ago
        The principles are essentially the same, but they are discrete copyrights which could be owned by different people.
- cosmie 6y ago
  Thank you so much for writing this comment! I've been in several situations where this would have been incredibly handy, but never realized it was possible.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    `youtube-dl --write-sub --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download [URL]` (Then just use grep) There's all kinds of cool stuff you can do with youtube-dl. For example 'ytsearch20:kittens' will get a playlist of the first 20 search results for 'kittens'.
- andrei_says_ 6y ago
  This sounds incredibly powerful. Wondering if c-span is on youtube and properly close captioned.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    According to their FAQ, c-span.org's search uses closed captioning to facilitate search (but they don't provide copies of those transcripts.) Perhaps that might suite your needs though.

lostcolony 6y ago

Is that metadata protected by some sort of mechanism? Or is it just not queried by default using one's browser? I.e., is youtube-dl calling a public, unsecured API, or is it circumventing some sort of copy protection? Because if it's just querying for metadata that anyone can already query for...your point seems immaterial as to the legality of the tool?

robertlagrant 6y ago
They're saying that sure, the name youtube-dl might well imply it's specifically for downloading things from YouTube, but that doesn't mean it's specifically for downloading video from YouTube.