33 ms·

YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

596 points by makeworld 5y ago

nonamesleft 5y ago
But https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp (fork of youtube-dl) can, so it shouldn't be a problem forever for youtube-dl either?
- judge2020 5y ago
  I don't see a mention of yt-dlp in the yt-dl issue tracker, so why is this? Does dlp autocorrect videos to the youtube-nocookie.com embed (as stated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354423) ?
  - colethedj 5y ago
    Nope. There's two issues being talked about here. If you are in the EU then you have to provide cookies from an age-verified account. Otherwise, the age-gate bypass still works afaik. But the latter is broken in the current youtube-dl release (fixed in yt-dlp). Also, yt-dl doesn't like yt-dlp to be mentioned on their issue tracker from what I hear.
- prg318 5y ago
  yt-dlp actually does have the same issue (at least when connecting from the US): ./yt-dlp.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE" [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Downloading webpage [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Refetching age-gated info webpage ERROR: Sign in to confirm your age This video may be inappropriate for some users.
  - nonamesleft 5y ago
    Seems to be video-dependent, tried the one you posted, and it seems to fail, but another one "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew" worked with yt-dlp but not youtube-dl. Guess it's the beginning of the end of watching youtube for me soon. EDIT: From an EU ip.
    - fernandotakai 5y ago
      i tried "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE" and your link and both return the same thing -- age restricted -- from south america.
    - rolph 5y ago
      from USA ip : youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew [youtube] oY4Gz_Axpew: Downloading webpage [youtube] oY4Gz_Axpew: Refetching age-gated info webpage WARNING: unable to download video info webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not Found Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 174, in _run_module_as_main "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code exec code in run_globals File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module> File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 475, in main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 465, in _real_main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2069, in download File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 808, in extract_info File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 815, in wrapper File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 534, in extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1502, in _real_extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2644, in compat_parse_qs File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2614, in _parse_qsl AttributeError: 'bool' object has no attribute 'split' very interesting
stefan_ 5y ago
It can't download the video in the same sense that I can't expect to point YouTube-dl at a Netflix URL and have it download that. You need to login.
- h0nd 5y ago
  Login alone does not help for age restricted videos. First step towards automatically stop using youtube. It their choice really.
  - stefan_ 5y ago
    Yes, I should have added and verified your age. But none of that is a youtube-dl matter, there is no magic video download link hidden in the page source.
    - jupp0r 5y ago
      Of course this is a youtube-dl matter. It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video.
      - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
        No I've also had age restricted embedded links throw an error with something like "this video cannot be played here" and linking to non embedded player link.
      - gruez 5y ago
        >It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video. It doesn't work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599
        jupp0r 5y ago
        It doesn't work anymore. It did when I wrote the above comment. Thanks for downvoting.
marcodiego 5y ago
I remember http://nsfwyoutube.com/ http://nsfwyoutube.com/ hasn't been working for sometime. Maybe it is related. Is there still a way to anonymously watch restricted videos on youtube? I don't want to login to google to watch videos.
- gulbrandr 5y ago
  You can use https://yewtu.be/ https://yewtu.be/ which is an instance of Invidious, all instances are listed here: https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/f8ac896b91888e7cf365ac65fef0ff1ef1dd843a/Invidious-Instances.md https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/f8ac896b91888e7...
  - Ajedi32 5y ago
    Are you sure this change doesn't break Invidious as well? How will Invidious access those videos if it needs to sign in to do it?
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      Invidious can still get around the nanny gate...for now.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  It works for me for maybe 2 out of 3 videos, then about half of those that don't work will work with their backup method (which I guess is maybe a download to their servers and then served from there).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
alimbada 5y ago
I had this issue recently. The workaround was to use the embedded video link, e.g.: youtube-dl https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VIDEO_ID_HERE Edit: It seems to have been patched. I can't seem to use this method anymore.
- gruez 5y ago
  IME it depends on the video. I've encountered videos where the embed workaround didn't work, although I was using the youtube domain not the youtube-nocookie domain.
  - alimbada 5y ago
    It seems they've plugged the workaround. I tried it again and it no longer works.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    I am not sure if it's the video itself or if we as 'anonymous' users keep getting in and out of regional a/b testing at youtube. As an anonymous user I keep seeing different behaviours with both 'forcing' embeddded links and also normal mobile links with latest ublock origin. (On Android with FF + ublock)
- npteljes 5y ago
  Patched indeed. I used this trick for ages, but it doesn't work for some time now.
theamk 5y ago
Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you provide logged in account info. I think the correct title is: youtube-dl can no longer be used to bypass youtube's age verification checks
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  > Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you provide logged in account info ... assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of your ID card to prove that you are 18+ ...
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of your ID card" I expect that at some point you'll have to prove your identity to use youtube at all, because its in Google's interest to know as much as possible about its users. Youtube will also probably turn in to a pay-to-view service at some point. They already dominate the video space, and their network effects are enormous, and a huge number of people will pay to continue to get access to that.
    - debacle 5y ago
      Google needs trust to be pay-to-view. These anti-user practices will further erode their trust, not increase it.
    - thu2111 5y ago
      It's definitely not in Google's interest to require an action as awkward and engagement-killing as ID verification. They work very hard to not take such drastic steps. Such requirements are being driven by governments who don't care at all about user convenience, only extending their control over people whilst blaming the private sector for "making" them do it.
  - pitaj 5y ago
    ...only in some jurisdictions where it's required by law.
dharmab 5y ago
From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP addressess, and you can pass in the session cookie of an account which has completed age verification.
- throwaway2048 5y ago
  I live in Canada and definitely have the same issue.
- gruez 5y ago
  >From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP addressess I tried with several north american VPN nodes and it's blocked as well.
toto444 5y ago
A few days ago, I clicked an age restricted video on Youtube and usually I just state that I am above 18 but now they ask for a credit card number or an identity card to prove it. I am not going to send this just to watch some random video clip that users have declared not appropriate to a young audience because it features a zombie. Seriously!
- etxm 5y ago
  That’s interesting because I had a credit card at 16 (it was on my parent’s account).
  - carlhjerpe 5y ago
    I had a debit at 12 (Visa Electron), my own account but approved at the bank by mom.
- buggeryorkshire 5y ago
  I had that too. A 14 year old account, with Google Cloud and Google One billing, plus many Google Store purchases and they still wanted me to prove my age. WTF?
  - gruez 5y ago
    That totally makes sense from a software engineering point of view. The age check was probably implemented as a "verified_age" column somewhere, and they didn't bother backfilling it with your existing google account info.
    - retSava 5y ago
      Absolutely, but for one of the largest sites on the web, served by one of the richest companies on the planet, being the one company knowing the most about me (and billions more) compared to other companies, and Youtube being probably one of the most profitable sites on the web too, I do expect better.
    - 5y ago
dredmorbius 5y ago
Is there a test video instance that can be used to check this on other systems? What's the behaviour on Invidious instances presently? (See: https://redirect.invidious.io/ https://redirect.invidious.io/)
spentu 5y ago
I noticed this yesterday and now I am wondering what to do. Especially when more and more videos are getting flagged. ID is out of the question, credit card seems more plausible. However, i wonder what happens when you give the number. I don't want that it sticks after validation...
- booleandilemma 5y ago
  Would it be worth it to just get a credit card for the sole purpose of youtube-dl? Maybe put some kind of limit on it, if possible?
  - spentu 5y ago
    Long time ago I remember reading about some service, that allows using single use credit cards. Last year I was looking for it, as many services cannot ne trusted with this information. But I could nothing like it. Maybe I was just dreaming... Getting a legit card like that could be possible, but I don't think its worth of hassle and possible costs. Some companies practically throw these cards on you, but usually there is a catch.
    - mmmmmbop 5y ago
      You might be thinking of Privacy [0]. [0] https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
    - dharmab 5y ago
      Capital One has an app called Eno which generates alternate card numbers, but they are still tied to the same account and identity.
    - ohmaigad 5y ago
      Revolut has disposable virtual cards - https://www.revolut.com/help/making-payments/getting-a-card/virtual-debit-card/what-is-a-disposable-virtual-card https://www.revolut.com/help/making-payments/getting-a-card/...
    - beardbound 5y ago
noisy_boy 5y ago
Am I the only one who didn't even know that youtube had age-restricted videos? Somehow I have managed to watch it for years without ever getting prompted for age confirmation!
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  It depends on what your needs/interests are. For example I've worked in medical devices, I had to watch a lot of different types of surgical procedures for a specific application. A lot of surgical content gets tagged as 'adult' even though it has nothing inappropriate as such.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  YouTube had to crack down on all kinds of videos because of some laws that congress passed under the pretense of "protecting children". For many content creators it's easier to mark your video as age-restricted than to try and comply with child-friendly guidelines. This is also why so many videos now disable the comments section.
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    Seeing the incredibly inappropriate content the algorithm (tm) starts suggesting to actual children (I see you like numberblocks, maybe you'll enjoy this fake video of numberblocks killing each other and swearing or this extremely repetitive and epilepsy-inducing flashing video with a couple of numberblocks characters) it’s clear to me they don’t give a crap and just do the bare minimum to tick some legalese checkbox in some compliance form somewhere.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    That sounds fine to me; child friendly should mean 'beneficial to children' or at least designed for children and not 'no searching nor nudity [nor extreme violence]'.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Yeah this definitely a government overreach thing rather than google's fault. Their implementation of the policy is kind of awful I suppose though.
depingus 5y ago
I wonder how this is going to affect NewPipe.
- Sleepytime 5y ago
  Just checked the video in the issue, it doesn't work in newpipe.
  - lk0nga 5y ago
    I confirm I've been experiencing "age related" issues in videos this week on newpipe
williesleg 5y ago
Who cares? Time to go to tick tack.
hk1337 5y ago
Just from YouTube it looks like because YouTube-dl works on pornhub and other XXX sites too.
bencollier49 5y ago
I've found YouTube increasingly unusable in general over the last few months. It seems to be pushing absolute rubbish at me. There's a gap in the market for a music-only video service.
- swiley 5y ago
  >music-only video service I'm not sure how that isn't soundcloud/spotify.
  - yakubin 5y ago
    Soundcloud and Spotify don't have any video.
    - bencollier49 5y ago
      That was my reasoning.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Spotify has video for some titles, particularly pop.
      - kjkjadksj 5y ago
        Usually its like a 30 second loop vs an actual music video.
        swiley 5y ago
        We're rapidly approaching 30 seconds as the "standard" length for pop music.
        imhoguy 5y ago
        tiktokization of pop music /s
macinjosh 5y ago
Another great Internet snafu brought to you by over reaching EU technocrats.
slazaro 5y ago
It's pretty infurating that I've had a Youtube account since 2006 (15 years ago), and now they're asking me whether i'm over 18. A basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts based on age, given the TOS of when they were created (e.g. if the TOS specified that I must be over 13, a 2006 account would mean I'm at least 28, therefore automatically verified).
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  So you didn't create your Google account at age 3? That's impossible!
  - rolph 5y ago
    the 100th toddler theory: given enough time and sufficient numbers of toddlers chewing on keyboards one of them will out of chance alone create a google account
    - eric__cartman 5y ago
      well I did somehow manage to screw up my dad's linux box like that so anything's possible. (although I suspect it was because I liked to be an asshole and shut his computer off using the power button)
  - FranchuFranchu 5y ago
    Well, if a 3-year old toddler watches age-restricted videos on his mother's verified account, is that against child protection laws?
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  There's such clause in TOS and I think that's how it worked, unlike Twitter which locked out every account when they added the TOS clause for needing to be over 13 when the account was created.
- knodi123 5y ago
  > A basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts based on age, given the TOS of when they were created I assumed it was a legal requirement, and basic intuition and common sense aren't relevant. Much like the immigration form that says "Are you a terrorist".
everdrive 5y ago
This problem may be surmountable, but eventually it seems likely that youtube will be closed to hackers and freeloaders. It's sad in the general sense -- but of course Google is free to modify their services however they like. Hosting all that video is not free and currently they support it via advertising. This means that any consumer of Youtube should expect that eventually Youtube may stop working for them -- and perhaps all the content they love on Youtube will eventually become unavailable.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
If there's anyone running a YouTube channel getting hit by the age restrictions, consider running a PeerTube: https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/
- Aerroon 5y ago
  But the age restriction is due to EU regulation. It's only a matter of time until it filters elsewhere. Switching from YouTube isn't going to make a difference.
  - JI00912 5y ago
    Any source for that? A few people have claimed legislation to be a reason but I'm not aware of any such rules. Actually I'd be very, very surprised if this was even in the jurisdiction of the EU.
    - sbarre 5y ago
      It's literally discussed and linked at the top of this thread.
      - JI00912 5y ago
        Umm, no. The start of this thread just a link to joinpeertube and the top comment has no source or link of any kind. So I gather you don't have any source either then.
        thu2111 5y ago
        He means the discussion of the article. The change is due to new EU legislation, links are provided elsewhere in the (whole) thread.
        Aerroon 5y ago
        It's this thing that's at fault: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-avmsd https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-a... Google even says so: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en >The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is an EU-wide coordination of national legislation on audiovisual media – both traditional TV broadcasts and on-demand services. Recently, AVMSD was revised to extend certain rules to video sharing platforms (VSPs). >In line with AVMSD, you may be asked to re-verify your date of birth when watching age-restricted videos. Follow the prompts to submit an image of a valid ID or credit card.
bruiseralmighty 5y ago
Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure for so much of internet culture, not to mention people's actual creative lives. This is one of the reasons I started using youtube-dl. I wanted to create an independent backup of all my favorite creators and contributors in the event that they have to leave or delete their channels. This content should belong to everyone. I wish I could trust that all my favorite videos will be there forever, but this is just not the case. Removing the comments on music videos already hurt a lot.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure You should consider using PeerTube instead, which is federated.
- thethimble 5y ago
  Sorry I have the opposite perspectives as you: I don’t want to visit independent creators’ websites to find their content - all with different UIs, etc. YouTube gives me a clean, centralized way to access content where I know I will be able to stream 4K and view content offline. This feels massively more convenient to me than having to maintain a catalog of offline videos… While I think we all agree that centralization of control isn’t great, the consumer gets tremendous value from centralization and this value doesn’t get talked about enough. Finally your assertion of “this content should belong to everyone” is idealistic. Who is going to pay to store and stream this content? What about the copyright of the actual content creators?
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    > all with different UIs, etc. Let me introduce you to the concept of RSS and news/feed readers: https://aboutfeeds.com/ https://aboutfeeds.com/
    - pavel_lishin 5y ago
      That's fine for discovering that an artist has put out a new video, not necessarily great for actually visiting their site and figuring out how to play it.
jokoon 5y ago
I found a way to download one through some proxy thing can't remember which
bouncycastle 5y ago
Recently, my 15 year old Google account started to nag me for my birthday. If Google was smart, they could have worked out that I'm old enough by now! (The account is older than 13 so definitely not a kid behind it, lol)
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Ditto. Good thing the only product I use is Chat and can afford to lose it.
- fsflover 5y ago
  But maybe your parents created the account for you, when you were not born yet?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bouncycastle 5y ago
    I'm over 13, which is the law that they're concerned with
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  True, but are you 18?
  - bouncycastle 5y ago
    I have already added multiple credit cards to the account over the years.
mrvenkman 5y ago
The whole method that YouTube have used to set this up is worrying to me. In the space that the video is supposed to show there is simply a link to a website that you use to upload your details. It's a phisherman's dream.
- Lornedon 5y ago
  So they're phisherman's phriends?
chaz6 5y ago
I have a credit card linked to my account with Google Pay, and yet they want me to provide it again. That makes no sense. They already have the information.
heywherelogingo 5y ago
I noticed this. My android phone is also harassing me for proof of birth date ("to help comply with the law"). I previously just signed out of google, but a couple of weeks ago i signed in for some reason, and can no longer find the way to sign out again. Android is the last google thing I use... looks like it's time to finalise the elimination of google. edit: ah, i think i do a remote sing-out from another device.
- crocodiletears 5y ago
  Leineage and Grapheneos are good alternatives to stock android. F-droid and Aurora (oss google play store client) have most of the apps you'd need, and most work well enough w/o google play services.
draw_down 5y ago
Really seems like the place to implement this functionality is in the browser, the thing that actually does the fetching and displaying of video.
gsich 5y ago
This [0] still works, so it should be doable by youtube-dl too. 0: https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restriction-Bypass https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio...
- gruez 5y ago
  Doesn't seem to work on the video mentioned in the github link.
MattPalmer1086 5y ago
I bought a bunch of videos for my son to watch on his YouTube account. We can no longer access them as they are age restricted. I don't have a problem with Google providing parental controls, if I as the parent am in control. But Google have unilaterally decided that for us. Never buying any media from Google (or any other large tech company again). Reverting to second hand DVDs and putting them on Plex.
- privacyking 5y ago
  Just do a charge back. Oh wait, don't do that unless you want the account and any associated accounts to get permmabanned.
globular-toast 5y ago
This is lame. I download stuff with youtube-dl not because of "piracy" (the quality is shit and things like that are available elsewhere), but because I want to make sure I have a copy of important information. This very morning I changed a part on my car using a YouTube video as a guide. I downloaded this when I found it in case it was removed or my Internet connection was down when I needed it. If you go to the library it's perfectly legal to make photocopies of books for personal use. It's just common sense. But these monopolies naturally don't want us to have this right and want to make is think we're evil if we make our own copy of the information. I feel like these platforms like YouTube are an addiction. We know they have problems but we just can't shake them. I felt this way about Windows and Microsoft on general 15 years ago. I went cold turkey and stopped using those products back then and I've been very happy ever since. But things have become too easy and I've become complacent. I think it may be time for me to shake another addiction.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
By market forces alone, Chinese censors will eventually gain control of YT and tell people of the world they what they can and cannot post. It's already happened to Hollywood movies.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
Say there were a command-line or .rc option to confirm you're over age X. How much effort would it be to auto-generate or draw-from a pool of throwaway accounts that over age X?
hedora 5y ago
Gmail recently started prompting saying they need a birthday to “comply with the law”, and that they’ll share it / use it for whatever unless you opt out in account settings. Under account settings, it only lets you opt out of publishing your birthday to your contacts. There’s no opt out for marketing / sharing it with their business partners, etc. Scumbags.
llacb47 5y ago
Although I'm not sure if this problem is fixed there, you should switch to yt-dlp for more active maintainance and added features/fixes: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
- FlashBlaze 5y ago
  I wasn't aware of this project. Thanks for mentioning it.
gnoll_of_gozag 5y ago
there are js scripts like https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restriction-Bypass https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio... so it seems like this will get fixed eventually
- pityJuke 5y ago
  Thanks for linking this. Hopefully it continues to work for a while.
- makeworld 5y ago
  Does not appear to work for the video in the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE
ficiek 5y ago
I don't understand what they expect, I will simply NEVER provide them with this data.
- oooooooooooow 5y ago
  They expect you to comply, or be left out.
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
I had a similar issue few days ago, but managed to do it with downloading my youtube account cookies with Chrome extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bga... This is the command I have used: ./youtube-dl -f best -a test.txt --cookies ./youtube.com.cookies -a test.txt - i had a bunch of URL in text file.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
megous 5y ago
Aren't there better websites if you're into age restricted videos?
- SuperCuber 5y ago
  An age restricted video could be be one that features mild gore and isn't rated for children, or for example music that originates from an adult rated show... Not everything age restricted is porn.
- crocodiletears 5y ago
  News content, citizen journalist videos
- johnlorentzson 5y ago
  There are videos that are age restricted because of swearing. Porn isn't the issue here (especially since it's not allowed on YouTube even with age restrictions).
fapjacks 5y ago
Anytime anyone leans on the old "think of the children" meme, it should immediately raise suspicions about intent.
Sleepytime 5y ago
This is Google making the first steps to block alternate/privacy centric interfaces such as NewPipe/invidious/youtube-dl. Push back now or never.
miles 5y ago
The title should be updated to indicate that this change only affects EU-based IP addresses: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810034893 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom... https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-809033365 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...
- 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
  It's definitely affecting at least some US users some of the time.
  - miles 5y ago
    As remitamine explained[1]: > it's not about the issue not related to the US, it's that youtube won't allow access to the video when you're accessing a non-embedable age-restricted video from the EU with passing the new age verification requirement, youtube-dl can't simply bypass this condition. >> I just connected to a US server using VPN, and this is the report i got: > you didn't pass the cookies. and fosam amplified[2]: > If you connect from the EU and have not verified, there is no way without the VPN. If you have already verified your account you can just pass the cookies and download. [1] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810226995 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom... [2] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810449508 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...
- PostOnce 5y ago
  It affects me from US and NZ ip addresses.
pa9am 5y ago
I got the pop-up a week back or so. I uploaded a photo of my drivers license with everything redacted except my name and date of birth and clearly watermarked it with the purpose and current date. It was accepted automatically within a few seconds. Can't really complain.
crispyambulance 5y ago
This is what we get for the proliferation of saucy “bikini haul” videos!
rolph 5y ago
actual HTML title == [[YouTube] Age verification issues - Can't download video. · Issue #28578 · ytdl-org/youtube-dl · GitHub] actual rendered title == [YouTube] Age verification issues - Can't download video. #28578] apparently this issue was closed >> Suika commented Mar 29, 2021: You are probably connecting from EU, right? A change to YT was announced ~4 month that there will be extra steps for age verification in EU, iirc. If you connect from outside of EU, it should work.<<
alphabet9000 5y ago
As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and i have been using it with success for weeks now. get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then run youtube-dl in that folder with: youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id https://youtu.be/id it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that cookie continues to work even if you log out of your account in the browser and log back in etc i'm trying to imagine a way to have a more permanent solution, maybe if youtube-dl provided some kind of login prompt type thing to enter some your credentials to virtually log in, although i imagine that would start to be another cat and mouse game of it working and then not working. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bga... [1] https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif
- philshem 5y ago
  youtube-dl does have “—-username” and “—-password” flags, or will prompt for a password if you just specify “-u”. https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#authentication-options https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#authentication-option... But as of a couple days ago it wasn’t working for age-restricted videos.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    That is for HTTP auth.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  > the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure Doesn't that only work if you a) are in the EU and have verified your age or b) outside the EU?
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just use youtube-dl INSTEAD of signing-in. And by the way, I always mostly used random birth dates whenever registering anywhere because I consider that personal information and don't want to share it. I don't even know what birth date did I set when I got my GMail back in the days it required invitations. I don't feel like watching an age-restricted video ever again if this actually requires identification and leaves no workaround. UPDATE: I'm actually surprised this gets down-voted.
tubbyjr 5y ago
Use alternate youtube front-ends like Invidious
YetAnotherNick 5y ago
"In EU". Why is this not part of the submission?
wodenokoto 5y ago
The irony of the age verification is that almost all age restricted videos on youtube are things I want to watch when logged out of my account.
bitL 5y ago
It seems like YouTube deprecated /v/{video id} direct URL to all videos. All nice hacks slowly gone from Google...
circa 5y ago
Age-restricted videos for adults or age-restricted videos for kids?

596 points by makeworld 5y ago

But https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp (fork of youtube-dl) can, so it shouldn't be a problem forever for youtube-dl either?

judge2020 5y ago
I don't see a mention of yt-dlp in the yt-dl issue tracker, so why is this? Does dlp autocorrect videos to the youtube-nocookie.com embed (as stated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354423) ?
- colethedj 5y ago
  Nope. There's two issues being talked about here. If you are in the EU then you have to provide cookies from an age-verified account. Otherwise, the age-gate bypass still works afaik. But the latter is broken in the current youtube-dl release (fixed in yt-dlp). Also, yt-dl doesn't like yt-dlp to be mentioned on their issue tracker from what I hear.
prg318 5y ago
yt-dlp actually does have the same issue (at least when connecting from the US): ./yt-dlp.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE" [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Downloading webpage [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Refetching age-gated info webpage ERROR: Sign in to confirm your age This video may be inappropriate for some users.
- nonamesleft 5y ago
  Seems to be video-dependent, tried the one you posted, and it seems to fail, but another one "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew" worked with yt-dlp but not youtube-dl. Guess it's the beginning of the end of watching youtube for me soon. EDIT: From an EU ip.
  - fernandotakai 5y ago
    i tried "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE" and your link and both return the same thing -- age restricted -- from south america.
  - rolph 5y ago
    from USA ip : youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew [youtube] oY4Gz_Axpew: Downloading webpage [youtube] oY4Gz_Axpew: Refetching age-gated info webpage WARNING: unable to download video info webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not Found Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 174, in _run_module_as_main "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code exec code in run_globals File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module> File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 475, in main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 465, in _real_main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2069, in download File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 808, in extract_info File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 815, in wrapper File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 534, in extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1502, in _real_extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2644, in compat_parse_qs File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2614, in _parse_qsl AttributeError: 'bool' object has no attribute 'split' very interesting

stefan_ 5y ago

It can't download the video in the same sense that I can't expect to point YouTube-dl at a Netflix URL and have it download that. You need to login.

h0nd 5y ago
Login alone does not help for age restricted videos. First step towards automatically stop using youtube. It their choice really.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  Yes, I should have added and verified your age. But none of that is a youtube-dl matter, there is no magic video download link hidden in the page source.
  - jupp0r 5y ago
    Of course this is a youtube-dl matter. It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video.
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      No I've also had age restricted embedded links throw an error with something like "this video cannot be played here" and linking to non embedded player link.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed the video. It doesn't work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599
      - jupp0r 5y ago
        It doesn't work anymore. It did when I wrote the above comment. Thanks for downvoting.

marcodiego 5y ago

I remember http://nsfwyoutube.com/ http://nsfwyoutube.com/ hasn't been working for sometime. Maybe it is related. Is there still a way to anonymously watch restricted videos on youtube? I don't want to login to google to watch videos.

gulbrandr 5y ago
You can use https://yewtu.be/ https://yewtu.be/ which is an instance of Invidious, all instances are listed here: https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/f8ac896b91888e7cf365ac65fef0ff1ef1dd843a/Invidious-Instances.md https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/f8ac896b91888e7...
- Ajedi32 5y ago
  Are you sure this change doesn't break Invidious as well? How will Invidious access those videos if it needs to sign in to do it?
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    Invidious can still get around the nanny gate...for now.
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
It works for me for maybe 2 out of 3 videos, then about half of those that don't work will work with their backup method (which I guess is maybe a download to their servers and then served from there).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

alimbada 5y ago

I had this issue recently. The workaround was to use the embedded video link, e.g.: youtube-dl https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VIDEO_ID_HERE Edit: It seems to have been patched. I can't seem to use this method anymore.

gruez 5y ago
IME it depends on the video. I've encountered videos where the embed workaround didn't work, although I was using the youtube domain not the youtube-nocookie domain.
- alimbada 5y ago
  It seems they've plugged the workaround. I tried it again and it no longer works.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  I am not sure if it's the video itself or if we as 'anonymous' users keep getting in and out of regional a/b testing at youtube. As an anonymous user I keep seeing different behaviours with both 'forcing' embeddded links and also normal mobile links with latest ublock origin. (On Android with FF + ublock)
npteljes 5y ago
Patched indeed. I used this trick for ages, but it doesn't work for some time now.

theamk 5y ago

Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you provide logged in account info. I think the correct title is: youtube-dl can no longer be used to bypass youtube's age verification checks

formerly_proven 5y ago
> Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you provide logged in account info ... assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of your ID card to prove that you are 18+ ...
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of your ID card" I expect that at some point you'll have to prove your identity to use youtube at all, because its in Google's interest to know as much as possible about its users. Youtube will also probably turn in to a pay-to-view service at some point. They already dominate the video space, and their network effects are enormous, and a huge number of people will pay to continue to get access to that.
  - debacle 5y ago
    Google needs trust to be pay-to-view. These anti-user practices will further erode their trust, not increase it.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    It's definitely not in Google's interest to require an action as awkward and engagement-killing as ID verification. They work very hard to not take such drastic steps. Such requirements are being driven by governments who don't care at all about user convenience, only extending their control over people whilst blaming the private sector for "making" them do it.
- pitaj 5y ago
  ...only in some jurisdictions where it's required by law.

dharmab 5y ago

From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP addressess, and you can pass in the session cookie of an account which has completed age verification.

throwaway2048 5y ago
I live in Canada and definitely have the same issue.
gruez 5y ago
>From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP addressess I tried with several north american VPN nodes and it's blocked as well.

toto444 5y ago

A few days ago, I clicked an age restricted video on Youtube and usually I just state that I am above 18 but now they ask for a credit card number or an identity card to prove it. I am not going to send this just to watch some random video clip that users have declared not appropriate to a young audience because it features a zombie. Seriously!

etxm 5y ago
That’s interesting because I had a credit card at 16 (it was on my parent’s account).
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  I had a debit at 12 (Visa Electron), my own account but approved at the bank by mom.
buggeryorkshire 5y ago
I had that too. A 14 year old account, with Google Cloud and Google One billing, plus many Google Store purchases and they still wanted me to prove my age. WTF?
- gruez 5y ago
  That totally makes sense from a software engineering point of view. The age check was probably implemented as a "verified_age" column somewhere, and they didn't bother backfilling it with your existing google account info.
  - retSava 5y ago
    Absolutely, but for one of the largest sites on the web, served by one of the richest companies on the planet, being the one company knowing the most about me (and billions more) compared to other companies, and Youtube being probably one of the most profitable sites on the web too, I do expect better.
  - 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago

Is there a test video instance that can be used to check this on other systems? What's the behaviour on Invidious instances presently? (See: https://redirect.invidious.io/ https://redirect.invidious.io/)

spentu 5y ago

I noticed this yesterday and now I am wondering what to do. Especially when more and more videos are getting flagged. ID is out of the question, credit card seems more plausible. However, i wonder what happens when you give the number. I don't want that it sticks after validation...

booleandilemma 5y ago
Would it be worth it to just get a credit card for the sole purpose of youtube-dl? Maybe put some kind of limit on it, if possible?
- spentu 5y ago
  Long time ago I remember reading about some service, that allows using single use credit cards. Last year I was looking for it, as many services cannot ne trusted with this information. But I could nothing like it. Maybe I was just dreaming... Getting a legit card like that could be possible, but I don't think its worth of hassle and possible costs. Some companies practically throw these cards on you, but usually there is a catch.
  - mmmmmbop 5y ago
    You might be thinking of Privacy [0]. [0] https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
  - dharmab 5y ago
    Capital One has an app called Eno which generates alternate card numbers, but they are still tied to the same account and identity.
  - ohmaigad 5y ago
    Revolut has disposable virtual cards - https://www.revolut.com/help/making-payments/getting-a-card/virtual-debit-card/what-is-a-disposable-virtual-card https://www.revolut.com/help/making-payments/getting-a-card/...
  - beardbound 5y ago

noisy_boy 5y ago

Am I the only one who didn't even know that youtube had age-restricted videos? Somehow I have managed to watch it for years without ever getting prompted for age confirmation!

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
It depends on what your needs/interests are. For example I've worked in medical devices, I had to watch a lot of different types of surgical procedures for a specific application. A lot of surgical content gets tagged as 'adult' even though it has nothing inappropriate as such.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
YouTube had to crack down on all kinds of videos because of some laws that congress passed under the pretense of "protecting children". For many content creators it's easier to mark your video as age-restricted than to try and comply with child-friendly guidelines. This is also why so many videos now disable the comments section.
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  Seeing the incredibly inappropriate content the algorithm (tm) starts suggesting to actual children (I see you like numberblocks, maybe you'll enjoy this fake video of numberblocks killing each other and swearing or this extremely repetitive and epilepsy-inducing flashing video with a couple of numberblocks characters) it’s clear to me they don’t give a crap and just do the bare minimum to tick some legalese checkbox in some compliance form somewhere.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  That sounds fine to me; child friendly should mean 'beneficial to children' or at least designed for children and not 'no searching nor nudity [nor extreme violence]'.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Yeah this definitely a government overreach thing rather than google's fault. Their implementation of the policy is kind of awful I suppose though.

depingus 5y ago

I wonder how this is going to affect NewPipe.

Sleepytime 5y ago
Just checked the video in the issue, it doesn't work in newpipe.
- lk0nga 5y ago
  I confirm I've been experiencing "age related" issues in videos this week on newpipe

williesleg 5y ago

Who cares? Time to go to tick tack.

hk1337 5y ago

Just from YouTube it looks like because YouTube-dl works on pornhub and other XXX sites too.

bencollier49 5y ago

I've found YouTube increasingly unusable in general over the last few months. It seems to be pushing absolute rubbish at me. There's a gap in the market for a music-only video service.

swiley 5y ago
>music-only video service I'm not sure how that isn't soundcloud/spotify.
- yakubin 5y ago
  Soundcloud and Spotify don't have any video.
  - bencollier49 5y ago
    That was my reasoning.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Spotify has video for some titles, particularly pop.
    - kjkjadksj 5y ago
      Usually its like a 30 second loop vs an actual music video.
      - swiley 5y ago
        We're rapidly approaching 30 seconds as the "standard" length for pop music.
        imhoguy 5y ago
        tiktokization of pop music /s

macinjosh 5y ago

Another great Internet snafu brought to you by over reaching EU technocrats.

slazaro 5y ago

It's pretty infurating that I've had a Youtube account since 2006 (15 years ago), and now they're asking me whether i'm over 18. A basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts based on age, given the TOS of when they were created (e.g. if the TOS specified that I must be over 13, a 2006 account would mean I'm at least 28, therefore automatically verified).

eric__cartman 5y ago
So you didn't create your Google account at age 3? That's impossible!
- rolph 5y ago
  the 100th toddler theory: given enough time and sufficient numbers of toddlers chewing on keyboards one of them will out of chance alone create a google account
  - eric__cartman 5y ago
    well I did somehow manage to screw up my dad's linux box like that so anything's possible. (although I suspect it was because I liked to be an asshole and shut his computer off using the power button)
- FranchuFranchu 5y ago
  Well, if a 3-year old toddler watches age-restricted videos on his mother's verified account, is that against child protection laws?
forgotpwd16 5y ago
There's such clause in TOS and I think that's how it worked, unlike Twitter which locked out every account when they added the TOS clause for needing to be over 13 when the account was created.
knodi123 5y ago
> A basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts based on age, given the TOS of when they were created I assumed it was a legal requirement, and basic intuition and common sense aren't relevant. Much like the immigration form that says "Are you a terrorist".

everdrive 5y ago

This problem may be surmountable, but eventually it seems likely that youtube will be closed to hackers and freeloaders. It's sad in the general sense -- but of course Google is free to modify their services however they like. Hosting all that video is not free and currently they support it via advertising. This means that any consumer of Youtube should expect that eventually Youtube may stop working for them -- and perhaps all the content they love on Youtube will eventually become unavailable.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

If there's anyone running a YouTube channel getting hit by the age restrictions, consider running a PeerTube: https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/

Aerroon 5y ago
But the age restriction is due to EU regulation. It's only a matter of time until it filters elsewhere. Switching from YouTube isn't going to make a difference.
- JI00912 5y ago
  Any source for that? A few people have claimed legislation to be a reason but I'm not aware of any such rules. Actually I'd be very, very surprised if this was even in the jurisdiction of the EU.
  - sbarre 5y ago
    It's literally discussed and linked at the top of this thread.
    - JI00912 5y ago
      Umm, no. The start of this thread just a link to joinpeertube and the top comment has no source or link of any kind. So I gather you don't have any source either then.
      - thu2111 5y ago
        He means the discussion of the article. The change is due to new EU legislation, links are provided elsewhere in the (whole) thread.
      - Aerroon 5y ago
        It's this thing that's at fault: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-avmsd https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-a... Google even says so: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en >The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is an EU-wide coordination of national legislation on audiovisual media – both traditional TV broadcasts and on-demand services. Recently, AVMSD was revised to extend certain rules to video sharing platforms (VSPs). >In line with AVMSD, you may be asked to re-verify your date of birth when watching age-restricted videos. Follow the prompts to submit an image of a valid ID or credit card.

bruiseralmighty 5y ago

Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure for so much of internet culture, not to mention people's actual creative lives. This is one of the reasons I started using youtube-dl. I wanted to create an independent backup of all my favorite creators and contributors in the event that they have to leave or delete their channels. This content should belong to everyone. I wish I could trust that all my favorite videos will be there forever, but this is just not the case. Removing the comments on music videos already hurt a lot.

fsflover 5y ago
> Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure You should consider using PeerTube instead, which is federated.
thethimble 5y ago
Sorry I have the opposite perspectives as you: I don’t want to visit independent creators’ websites to find their content - all with different UIs, etc. YouTube gives me a clean, centralized way to access content where I know I will be able to stream 4K and view content offline. This feels massively more convenient to me than having to maintain a catalog of offline videos… While I think we all agree that centralization of control isn’t great, the consumer gets tremendous value from centralization and this value doesn’t get talked about enough. Finally your assertion of “this content should belong to everyone” is idealistic. Who is going to pay to store and stream this content? What about the copyright of the actual content creators?
- pmlnr 5y ago
  > all with different UIs, etc. Let me introduce you to the concept of RSS and news/feed readers: https://aboutfeeds.com/ https://aboutfeeds.com/
  - pavel_lishin 5y ago
    That's fine for discovering that an artist has put out a new video, not necessarily great for actually visiting their site and figuring out how to play it.

jokoon 5y ago

I found a way to download one through some proxy thing can't remember which

bouncycastle 5y ago

Recently, my 15 year old Google account started to nag me for my birthday. If Google was smart, they could have worked out that I'm old enough by now! (The account is older than 13 so definitely not a kid behind it, lol)

zbrozek 5y ago
Ditto. Good thing the only product I use is Chat and can afford to lose it.
fsflover 5y ago
But maybe your parents created the account for you, when you were not born yet?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bouncycastle 5y ago
  I'm over 13, which is the law that they're concerned with
forgotpwd16 5y ago
True, but are you 18?
- bouncycastle 5y ago
  I have already added multiple credit cards to the account over the years.

mrvenkman 5y ago

The whole method that YouTube have used to set this up is worrying to me. In the space that the video is supposed to show there is simply a link to a website that you use to upload your details. It's a phisherman's dream.

Lornedon 5y ago
So they're phisherman's phriends?

chaz6 5y ago

I have a credit card linked to my account with Google Pay, and yet they want me to provide it again. That makes no sense. They already have the information.

heywherelogingo 5y ago

I noticed this. My android phone is also harassing me for proof of birth date ("to help comply with the law"). I previously just signed out of google, but a couple of weeks ago i signed in for some reason, and can no longer find the way to sign out again. Android is the last google thing I use... looks like it's time to finalise the elimination of google. edit: ah, i think i do a remote sing-out from another device.

crocodiletears 5y ago
Leineage and Grapheneos are good alternatives to stock android. F-droid and Aurora (oss google play store client) have most of the apps you'd need, and most work well enough w/o google play services.

draw_down 5y ago

Really seems like the place to implement this functionality is in the browser, the thing that actually does the fetching and displaying of video.

gsich 5y ago

This [0] still works, so it should be doable by youtube-dl too. 0: https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restriction-Bypass https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio...

gruez 5y ago
Doesn't seem to work on the video mentioned in the github link.

MattPalmer1086 5y ago

I bought a bunch of videos for my son to watch on his YouTube account. We can no longer access them as they are age restricted. I don't have a problem with Google providing parental controls, if I as the parent am in control. But Google have unilaterally decided that for us. Never buying any media from Google (or any other large tech company again). Reverting to second hand DVDs and putting them on Plex.

privacyking 5y ago
Just do a charge back. Oh wait, don't do that unless you want the account and any associated accounts to get permmabanned.

globular-toast 5y ago

This is lame. I download stuff with youtube-dl not because of "piracy" (the quality is shit and things like that are available elsewhere), but because I want to make sure I have a copy of important information. This very morning I changed a part on my car using a YouTube video as a guide. I downloaded this when I found it in case it was removed or my Internet connection was down when I needed it. If you go to the library it's perfectly legal to make photocopies of books for personal use. It's just common sense. But these monopolies naturally don't want us to have this right and want to make is think we're evil if we make our own copy of the information. I feel like these platforms like YouTube are an addiction. We know they have problems but we just can't shake them. I felt this way about Windows and Microsoft on general 15 years ago. I went cold turkey and stopped using those products back then and I've been very happy ever since. But things have become too easy and I've become complacent. I think it may be time for me to shake another addiction.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

By market forces alone, Chinese censors will eventually gain control of YT and tell people of the world they what they can and cannot post. It's already happened to Hollywood movies.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

Say there were a command-line or .rc option to confirm you're over age X. How much effort would it be to auto-generate or draw-from a pool of throwaway accounts that over age X?

hedora 5y ago

Gmail recently started prompting saying they need a birthday to “comply with the law”, and that they’ll share it / use it for whatever unless you opt out in account settings. Under account settings, it only lets you opt out of publishing your birthday to your contacts. There’s no opt out for marketing / sharing it with their business partners, etc. Scumbags.

llacb47 5y ago

Although I'm not sure if this problem is fixed there, you should switch to yt-dlp for more active maintainance and added features/fixes: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

FlashBlaze 5y ago
I wasn't aware of this project. Thanks for mentioning it.

gnoll_of_gozag 5y ago

there are js scripts like https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restriction-Bypass https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio... so it seems like this will get fixed eventually

pityJuke 5y ago
Thanks for linking this. Hopefully it continues to work for a while.
makeworld 5y ago
Does not appear to work for the video in the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE

ficiek 5y ago

I don't understand what they expect, I will simply NEVER provide them with this data.

oooooooooooow 5y ago
They expect you to comply, or be left out.

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago

I had a similar issue few days ago, but managed to do it with downloading my youtube account cookies with Chrome extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bga... This is the command I have used: ./youtube-dl -f best -a test.txt --cookies ./youtube.com.cookies -a test.txt - i had a bunch of URL in text file.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

megous 5y ago

Aren't there better websites if you're into age restricted videos?

SuperCuber 5y ago
An age restricted video could be be one that features mild gore and isn't rated for children, or for example music that originates from an adult rated show... Not everything age restricted is porn.
crocodiletears 5y ago
News content, citizen journalist videos
johnlorentzson 5y ago
There are videos that are age restricted because of swearing. Porn isn't the issue here (especially since it's not allowed on YouTube even with age restrictions).

fapjacks 5y ago

Anytime anyone leans on the old "think of the children" meme, it should immediately raise suspicions about intent.

Sleepytime 5y ago

This is Google making the first steps to block alternate/privacy centric interfaces such as NewPipe/invidious/youtube-dl. Push back now or never.

miles 5y ago

The title should be updated to indicate that this change only affects EU-based IP addresses: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810034893 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom... https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-809033365 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...

0xcde4c3db 5y ago
It's definitely affecting at least some US users some of the time.
- miles 5y ago
  As remitamine explained[1]: > it's not about the issue not related to the US, it's that youtube won't allow access to the video when you're accessing a non-embedable age-restricted video from the EU with passing the new age verification requirement, youtube-dl can't simply bypass this condition. >> I just connected to a US server using VPN, and this is the report i got: > you didn't pass the cookies. and fosam amplified[2]: > If you connect from the EU and have not verified, there is no way without the VPN. If you have already verified your account you can just pass the cookies and download. [1] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810226995 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom... [2] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecomment-810449508 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...
PostOnce 5y ago
It affects me from US and NZ ip addresses.

pa9am 5y ago

I got the pop-up a week back or so. I uploaded a photo of my drivers license with everything redacted except my name and date of birth and clearly watermarked it with the purpose and current date. It was accepted automatically within a few seconds. Can't really complain.

crispyambulance 5y ago

This is what we get for the proliferation of saucy “bikini haul” videos!

rolph 5y ago

actual HTML title == [[YouTube] Age verification issues - Can't download video. · Issue #28578 · ytdl-org/youtube-dl · GitHub] actual rendered title == [YouTube] Age verification issues - Can't download video. #28578] apparently this issue was closed >> Suika commented Mar 29, 2021: You are probably connecting from EU, right? A change to YT was announced ~4 month that there will be extra steps for age verification in EU, iirc. If you connect from outside of EU, it should work.<<

alphabet9000 5y ago

As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and i have been using it with success for weeks now. get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then run youtube-dl in that folder with: youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id https://youtu.be/id it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that cookie continues to work even if you log out of your account in the browser and log back in etc i'm trying to imagine a way to have a more permanent solution, maybe if youtube-dl provided some kind of login prompt type thing to enter some your credentials to virtually log in, although i imagine that would start to be another cat and mouse game of it working and then not working. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bga... [1] https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif

philshem 5y ago
youtube-dl does have “—-username” and “—-password” flags, or will prompt for a password if you just specify “-u”. https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#authentication-options https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#authentication-option... But as of a couple days ago it wasn’t working for age-restricted videos.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  That is for HTTP auth.
zimpenfish 5y ago
> the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure Doesn't that only work if you a) are in the EU and have verified your age or b) outside the EU?
qwerty456127 5y ago
But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just use youtube-dl INSTEAD of signing-in. And by the way, I always mostly used random birth dates whenever registering anywhere because I consider that personal information and don't want to share it. I don't even know what birth date did I set when I got my GMail back in the days it required invitations. I don't feel like watching an age-restricted video ever again if this actually requires identification and leaves no workaround. UPDATE: I'm actually surprised this gets down-voted.

tubbyjr 5y ago

Use alternate youtube front-ends like Invidious

YetAnotherNick 5y ago

"In EU". Why is this not part of the submission?

wodenokoto 5y ago

The irony of the age verification is that almost all age restricted videos on youtube are things I want to watch when logged out of my account.

bitL 5y ago

It seems like YouTube deprecated /v/{video id} direct URL to all videos. All nice hacks slowly gone from Google...

circa 5y ago

Age-restricted videos for adults or age-restricted videos for kids?