13 ms·

YouTube DRM added on ALL videos with TV (TVHTML5) clients

410 points by azalemeth 2y ago

blueflow 2y ago
Can someone recommend an alternative to Youtube for discovering lofi/synthwave songs?
- djent 2y ago
  Soundcloud
  - throwawayq3423 2y ago
    Always was the king of new music discovery.
- galleywest200 2y ago
  Bandcamp. When you buy an album you get a DRM-free download. https://bandcamp.com/discover/electronic+synthwave https://bandcamp.com/discover/electronic+synthwave
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Fudgel 2y ago
  * https://www.di.fm/genres/synth https://www.di.fm/genres/synth * https://www.di.fm/search?q=lofi https://www.di.fm/search?q=lofi
cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
Okay, but: yt-dlp -f315 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqz-KE-bpKQ' [download] 100% of 1.27GiB in 00:00:52 at 24.85MiB/s Works fine with the version I had installed, 2025.02.19. I don't know if this perhaps affects web browsers playing on non-HDCP displays.
- pwdisswordfishz 2y ago
  Probably still in A/B testing.
- strgrd 2y ago
  I don't understand how you took the time to test that, but didn't take the time to RTFA: > We are getting reports of YouTube rolling out an experiment to some accounts where normal videos only have DRM formats available on the tv (TVHTML5) Innertube client.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    Honestly this is hard to parse What is a Innertube client? What is a TV format?
    - mjburgess 2y ago
      Innertube is youtube's internal name for some of their libraries
    - drewbitt 2y ago
      Innertube is Youtube's private API. `TV` is a player client. The player clients emulate client applications and provide different video/subtitle formats.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway314155 2y ago
    I don't understand how you RTFA.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  It doesn't... yet. They're playing the long game, the DRM noose tightens slowly.
- aprilnya 2y ago
tombert 2y ago
I guess it doesn't surprise me that our corporate overlords do everything possible to make it more annoying to watch their media, but I don't have to like it. It's frustrating, because at this point it's going to be extremely difficult to avoid DRM (quasi) legally. I HYPOTHETICALLY have over 400 Blu-ray movies, and about 40 complete series. I HYPOTHETICALLY painstakingly ripped all of them, broke their DRM, and watch it with my Jellyfin server. I don't put these videos on ThePirateBay, and the Blu-rays are all legit copies. I've gotten conflicting information about whether or not what I'm doing is legal, but I certainly don't think what I'm doing there is unethical. But now, how exactly do I get DRM-free movies while also paying for them? They aren't really producing Blu-rays for every movie anymore, if I want to buy a movie I have to get it from Amazon or something and stream it, with the corporation reserving the right to take it away at any time. Is the only way of getting and preserving media piracy now? I genuinely don't know of a way to get DRM-free media anymore without stealing it.
- 6stringmerc 2y ago
  I have done similar work with physical CDs for most of my life to ensure 320kbps quality as mp3 and also share your frustration at the state of the legal landscape and consumer hostile (monopolistic) practices. I get downvoted frequently here for mentioning the landscape should change but simply side-stepping the laws is still just that and throwing tantrums is a bad look (re: my critique of Ars Technica / TechDirt in another thread). Unfortunately it seems like legislation will have to be used to fix the problems we both face, but the likelihood is slim. Perhaps a wholesale collapse of the Federal Government would free states to experiment with new approaches. Thanks for sharing and I really wish I had an answer as well.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Yeah, I have a lot of CDs as well, I rip them to FLAC because, even though I doubt I can actually hear a diff between 320kbps and FLAC, it makes me feel like it sounds better. I find it highly doubtful that legislation will save us with this. It seems like congress, at least in the US, has worked hard to make copyrights longer and longer and worse and terrible. I would love it if they prove me wrong, and made copyright in the US much better, but I think corporations are too intermingled with politics to make that likely.
perching_aix 2y ago
Can anyone explain what this actually means? The issue ticket's core points revolve around concepts that are not understandable even for a technologically well-versed general reader, so people will just pivot to the keywords, which won't make for productive discussions. To be more specific: - what is an innertube client? - what is a `tv` innertube client? - what is TVHTML5? - what are "DRM formats"? - what does it mean for them to be "available"? - and finally, why is it of interest if they're only available to tv innertube clients?
- nyx 2y ago
  In summary, YouTube is A/B testing a change where specific clients receive only DRM-locked video streams. This is notable because yt-dlp impersonates those clients during normal operation. Since yt-dlp won't support decrypting DRM-locked videos, this change breaks yt-dlp's ability to download any videos. To respond to your specific questions: - innertube is the name for private YouTube APIs. (Here's a library that talks to innertube https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/ https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/, although yt-dlp has its own separate client code.) These APIs are intended for consumption by the various types of YouTube client software. - The "tv" client is one of the types of client (see other examples here: https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/blob/main/innertube/config.py#L69 https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/blob/main/innertube/c...) - TVHTML5 is the specific client (as opposed to e.g. TVLITE or TVANDROID)... presumably different TVs run different specific TV clients, with consumption of different specific TV APIs. - When yt-dlp downloads a video, it roughly performs this sequence of steps: pretend to be one of the types of clients supported by innertube; download the top-level video object; parse out the list of possible formats. These formats are like "MP4, 1080p, with AAC audio" or "Ogg, audio only". (The original issue report shows a better example in the verbose output dump.) By default, yt-dlp just grabs the best quality audio and best quality video stream, downloads them, and muxes them together into a single file, but you can configure this behavior. DRM formats are formats that are protected by (presumably) Widevine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine, the decryption of which yt-dlp has stated will not be supported. - Available means they're an option for our yt-dlp client to download. Videos don't necessarily have all formats for all clients; for instance, a video might not have a 4K option, because it was never uploaded in 4K. Or it might have a 4K upload, but YouTube won't show 4K options to a client that doesn't support 4K decoding. - In this case, it means this specific internal client type can't download the video, because when yt-dlp reaches out, it gets ONLY formats that are DRM-locked. This is of note, I think, because the TV client is a way to get high-quality video from the YouTube API without having to pass it a valid YouTube login token (further down the issue, the reporter says providing a token allows the "web" innertube client to work).
freedomben 2y ago
This is absolutely terrible news. It's been pretty clear this was coming, and I think fairly clear that this is part of a very high-level strategy for Google. They've been investing heavily in all aspects of this for years now, on the client and server side. It reeks of enshittification to me, but more than that I think we're just about to enter the era of locked/closed tech. A Youtube without DRM does almost feel like an anachronism when you consider the rest of the landscape. Most people willingly buy devices that severely limit what they can do, so I'm not expecting any real pushback from consumers either. Those of us who really care about this will probably just find ourselves faced with a choice: digitally divide (and deprive) ourselves for our principles, or be forcefully shoved into the same box as the lowest common denominator users. Assuming non-evil motivations on the G executives part, I do wonder if AI was the final straw here. In order to build their "moat" on Gemini they need to make it so data collectors can't get to Youtube videos. Only "real" way to ensure that is to DRM things. X/Twitter, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and many others have taken steps as well for similar reasons. I'm sure it's something they wanted to do anyway so maybe AI is more an excuse than a reason, but it's surely not nothing.
- RachelF 2y ago
  AI is probably the threat executives understand. There are also some pretty good third party YT clients like GrayJay https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/ These let you follow creators across various video platforms in one app. Bad for YT lock-in that Google wants.
- unqueued 2y ago
  I wish more were done to push back against this consolidation of power by these platforms. We're like frogs that have been stoking the fuel of our own pot. It used to be that DRM was considered to be in conflict with the browser, because it was not acting on behalf of the user. If you must have DRM, then it is on the platform to shoehorn it in through an external plugin, like Silverlight. When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. If we make DRM a switch that can simply be thrown, then it will become the norm, not the exception. And there have been proposals for years to DRM fonts and other absurdities. If a company insists on using DRM, then they should have to shoulder the burden of doing something that a browser was never support to support. The nightmare that we're racing toward is you will only be permitted to cache a trickle of video at a time and your TPM attestation hardware must include a token in every HTTP request. Your browser will just be a software cablebox. They aren't happy about URLs either and would love to require that if you want to share a reference to something, you have to do it on their terms, like generating a url in their app with a hash that expires and limited in how many times it can be viewed. I'm sure influencers will still have the privilege of unlimited sharing. They've been slowly rolling this infrastructure out for the last decade. These are not isolated inconveniences, these are coffin nails.
jeanofthedead 2y ago
Will this kill extensions like Vinegar for Safari?
fancyfredbot 2y ago
Why do people use yt-dlp? Is it to skip ads or watch offline? YouTube premium also lets you watch offline and skip ads but for a price. So surely it's no surprise that Google don't want you to have it for free. I think YouTube premium is too expensive given Google pay so little for the content but I don't think it would be sustainable if everyone got it for free.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  I mean, in some sense your two cases are indistinguishable since there's no way I'm going to inject ads into my local .mp4 However, I'd guess quite a few folks use yt-dlp for archiving (or watching on an airplane) because YT Premium is not a "we promise this video will still be available next month"
  - nyx 2y ago
    Yep, downloading copies of videos so I can watch them on long flights is one of my main use cases for yt-dlp. I suppose someone more sycophantic to the wishes of trillion-dollar corporations could argue that I'm not entitled to do this for free, and that YouTube offers an offline download option as part of its $13.99/mo Premium offering. To them, I'd say "you're right, also go pound sand lol."
- m4rtink 2y ago
  Making sure you can play the video tomorrow in case Youtube arbitrarily decides it no longer likes it or the account related to it get blocked by some automated algorithm without any recourse for the author, etc.
  - i80and 2y ago
    I've heard there are also rare but serious issues where YouTube will just let old videos bitrot so they nominally still exist, but don't play correctly.
    - Chaosvex 2y ago
jareds 2y ago
I already massively reduced my time in the Youtube App by writing some scripts using yt-dlp to download my subscriptions, convert them to mp3 and host the podcast feeds inside my local network. I guess when this eventually breaks I'll probably have to go outside during my free time. It's still working for now so lets hope it continues until spring.
- SlackingOff123 2y ago
  > using yt-dlp to download my subscriptions, convert them to mp3 and host the podcast feeds inside my local network Hey! I've just had the thought of doing this myself the other day. Do you mind sharing what tools you're using, besides yt-dlp? For example, what are you using to host and generate the rss feed (if that's what you're doing)?
  - jareds 2y ago
    I use https://github.com/amsehili/genRSS https://github.com/amsehili/genRSS to create the rss feeds. I host them by running a Docker container that serves the folder on my nas that contains the media and generated xml files.
    - SlackingOff123 2y ago
      That seems to be just what I was looking for. Thanks!
  - Minor49er 2y ago
    One tool you might like is MeTube. While it can't schedule anything, I have it running it on a headless Beelink computer. So if I want to grab a video or channel, I can open a browser on any device, go to the server, and tell it to fetch whatever I want. The download location is set to a NAS so I can view the media with any device as well. It even supports extended yt-dlp options, so you can even tell it to use things like SponsorBlock. It's pretty great overall https://github.com/alexta69/metube https://github.com/alexta69/metube
boredhedgehog 2y ago
There must be many content creators who don't want DRM forced onto their videos, so I don't think it can ever be mandatory.
- stego-tech 2y ago
  I'm sure YouTube's position is that the videos aren't encrypted with DRM, but YouTube is merely encrypting the video stream from their service, which is therefore fine. It's BS, but I would bet that's their legal position. Best load up while you still can, I guess.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Just making it the default, or mandatory for monetization, would unfortunately be enough to make it stick.
- bjackman 2y ago
  There are many creators who don't want advertising but that doesn't stop YouTube.
  - bitpush 2y ago
    Then upload it onto their own servers? Nobody is forcing anyone to upload to YouTube?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      Their network effects are at least a bit coercive.
      - gitaarik 2y ago
        Also YouTube offers unlimited upload space. And their streaming is solid. Something not every video platform can offer.
    - bjackman 2y ago
      Yes you can also just put your video on a DVD and bury it in the garden. But usually the reason they want their videos to be free is that they have a message they want to communicate! If you want people to watch your video you don't have a choice but to upload it to YouTube and let Google make money off your work :(
Animats 2y ago
Does this break Chromium, the non-DRM open source version of Chrome?
- unixfox 2y ago
  For now, it only concerns the YouTube app for TV.
Seattle3503 2y ago
What is going to happen to Firefox users? The DRM supported by FF is easily broken. Will YouTube drop support for Firefox?
- lxgr 2y ago
  The primary use of DRM is arguably to bring a system into legal DMCA scope. Among other things, that would very likely be the end of yt-dlp being hosted on Github and maybe even being distributed via apt repositories, pip, homebrew etc.
- Clamchop 2y ago
  I think the odds of that happening are remote, but there is prior art from other streaming services for only serving reduced quality to clients that don't support DRM, or to clients that they just don't seem to like.
- OscarDC 2y ago
  Presumably this for now has only been seen for a specific tv client API that yt-dlp use and not all youtube videos (well, https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/4444 https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/4444 also saw it for "members-only" videos but again not all videos). --- Also I suppose you make a reference to software DRM like Widevine L3 vs L1 (same thing for PlayReady SL2000 vs SL3000) which is not exactly Firefox vs Chrome. Firefox has even be known to work on the availability of hardware DRM on windows right now, (through the Media Foundation API I think?). In the worst scenarios seen right now for example seen on services like Netflix, would be to only have lower qualities (e.g. 480p max) on browsers with only Software DRM available (like firefox) and encrypt better qualities with keys only available when there is hardware DRM available. Though I'm not sure YouTube would go that far for now? Netflix, Amazon and such have contracts with right-holders stating those protections as a requirement, but YouTube does not have (IMO thankfully) the same kind of relation and contract with "Youtubers". I think that what YouTube wants to do for now is to greatly lower the amount of people not watching contents through its website/app (and thus not seeing ads). I would even think that this is mostly not about yt-dlp users, but more the huge amount of people relying on some Youtube-to-mp3 website or similar accessible tools. Here enforcing software DRM would be enough to at least temporarily break all those tools and force those users to go back on the platform I guess, and maybe you can also sue some tools' developers once there is an "encryption breaking"-mechanism embedded in it (IANAL)?
tbet33 2y ago
[dead]
jhbadger 2y ago
Will this break things like Newpipe and Freetube?
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  In the long run most likely yes :( The door is closing slowly. Great timing with the whole manifest v3 switchover...
- unixfox 2y ago
  Has always been a cat and mouse game for more than 6 years. There will always be a way as long as google doesn't implement something like "device integrity" in order to watch youtube videos.
  - jimjimwii 2y ago
    The analog hole. As long as human eyes can perceive the video, there will always be a way to preserve it, even if we need to fall back to analog (we wont, probably).
buyucu 2y ago
How long until Youtube prevents people from watching videos without logging in?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  I dare them to do it! They won't!
- walrus01 2y ago
  They already do, go use the latest version of yt-dlp to download like 20 videos from a channel without passing cookies, and a very short time afterwards, everything at your IP address will be blocked from watching any videos unless you sign in.
  - buyucu 2y ago
    I download a lot of things from youtube using yt-dlp. So far I never had any issues with getting ip-blocked. In contrast, Instagram ip-blocks me very fast when I use gallery-dl to download a profile. I usually turn my modem on and off to get a new ip address.
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  YouTube has blocked access to videos considered to be "adult" (not porn but anything vaguely risqué) in Europe without signing into an account and performing credit card age verification for five years.
  - zinekeller 2y ago
    This is less of YouTube being YouTube but more of EU being EU (Article 28b of AVMSD), although I do not know if YouTube requires credit card verification in other countries (I know that YouTube now requires sign-in for "adult" videos basically anywhere, but how they implement them exactly is something that I do not know).
- 0x_rs 2y ago
  This is a thing already. "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot. This helps protect our community.", needless to say it applies to people and not bots, and does nothing to protect the "community". It's only going to get worse until people stop giving money to Google. https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1dasxoa/sign_in_to_prove_youre_not_a_bot/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1dasxoa/sign_in_to...
globular-toast 2y ago
Is YouTube the biggest rug pull in history? They built their monopoly by being a public, no bullshit video host. Nobody would have uploaded anything to them if it was like this 15 years ago. Not sure how many people can remember, but it would have been laughable back then to make videos and have someone put ads in the middle of them. But now it's milking time. Eventually they'll push it too far and they might start losing viewers, but not before a few people get very rich. I feel like we're entering a dark period. YouTube showed us what it could be like, but we need to organise ourselves and host videos in a peer to peer fashion if we want to get it back and keep it.
- bitpush 2y ago
  > Eventually they'll push it too far and they might start losing viewers To what service? Video hosting is famously super-duper expensive. And most creators are uploading for a monetary benefit ($) and ads are part of that equation.
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    > Video hosting is famously super-duper expensive Is it? Many of us have been doing it from our home ISPs for as long as YouTube has been around. Centralised video hosting might be expensive (but probably not as expensive as you think), but who says it has to be centralised?
- throwawayq3423 2y ago
  Not necessarily a rug pull, just a really good example of Enshittification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
- aprilnya 2y ago
  We’ve seen this so many times… - YouTube as you describe - Discord which did basically the same thing: was the best chat platform ever with no bullshit, then once it became used by everyone, is now turning into shit - Facebook, Twitter… - Countless others I don’t remember off the top of my head Any service like this that’s actually good and is owned by a company is just a timebomb to either becoming shit or shutting down
mdp2021 2y ago
Incidentally, YT just greeted here with a "Sign in to confirm you are not a bot. We do this to protect our community"... There are many ways to tighten a noose... Too bad that some of us will never have an account (just like some of us will not use any DRM system). We will have to find a way to access the wealth indirectly.
cavisne 2y ago
Is there an explainer on how this stuff works on platforms without some sort of DRM hardware? Or does it not work.
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  Any TV client that has an official YouTube app has been required to have DRM hardware for seven or eight years now, it's literally part of the terms for carrying it.
  - GaggiX 2y ago
    How does it work outside of clients, like on the browser, is it difficult for yt-dlp to impersonate a browser compare to a client?
    - Mindwipe 2y ago
      Increasingly browsers can do it too - Edge, Chrome for Windows 11, Firefox on Windows 11 and Safari on Macs have the ability to access hardware DRM if the hardware supports it. They will need a fallback, but reducing the resolution significantly on said fallback would solve that.
Acrobatic_Road 2y ago
On a related note, TubeArchivist just released v0.5, and is officially not in a feature freeze.
liendolucas 2y ago
We're where we are basically because people are happy with it. They are happy not owning a movie, a record, a book. People don't get it. They ones that we do are the minority. And is not that I'm against streaming. Streaming is ok, but all providers should offer the option to have at least a legit digital copy for a reasonable price to own. And by own I mean to have a non DRM protected file of any kind. A simple media file that can be truly owned and reproduced wherever I want. I have absolutely no issues at all paying to own something. Until then I will absolutely not pay a damn penny to these fuckers.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  1h streaming is 0.5g of carbon. Take that by 6h per day x 365. = 1095g per year per person. Lets assume 2 billion people stream. Thats 2.000.000.000 * 1095 = 2.190.000.000.000 Thats 2.190.000 tons of unnecessary carbondioxide. Piracy is one time, piracy is green, save the planet.
  - Eikon 2y ago
    > Take that by 6h per day x 365 You'll need to provide credible sources to support that claim. That assertion seems highly unrealistic.
    - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
      You are correct: https://www.finder.com/uk/stats-facts/tv-statistics https://www.finder.com/uk/stats-facts/tv-statistics its 4.25 h, so i get its even more with countries with older populations (germany, japan)
  - account42 2y ago
    What's the carbon cost of what those people would be doing if not "streaming"?
aantix 2y ago
I've been creating a web-based YouTube player for my kids. Will this restrict iframe embedded video playback?
- kevingadd 2y ago
  Embedded video playback with iframes is already restricted somewhat - many videos are flagged to not play when embedded. So it wouldn't surprise me if they clamp down on that further - but DRM is a separate concern and shouldn't have anything to do with iframes.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
A while back itag 18 and 22, MP4 video that includes an audio track, seemed to disappear in favor of split video and audio, e.g., formats with video only like itag 136 and 137. This requires using ffmpeg to merge an audio track with the video. More recently, it appears they have brought back itag 18.
- Aaron2222 2y ago
  yt-dlp can take multiple itags and merge them for you as part of the download process. Example: `yt-dlp -f 137+140 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'`
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
    yt-dlp can't do this without ffmpeg
    - Aaron2222 2y ago
      You need FFmpeg installed, yes. But it's not a separate step you have to do.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
    This requires space for two files, the video file and the audio file. After merge, which is a separate step from download (the "dl" in yt-dlp), the extra file is deleted. Whereas with itag 18, only space for one file is needed and no extra merge step using ffmpeg is required.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  For example, yt-dlp uses ffmpeg
shmerl 2y ago
What a garbage move.
cced 2y ago
How can the web players read the videos if they are encrypted? I’m guessing by definition they need the keys to do so thus would it not be possible for ytdlp to also support this when the encrypted video implementation is fully rolled out?
- gloosx 2y ago
  I think they use a special hardware DRM chip which is capable of decrypting the videos on the TV, which all TV manufacturers will happily provide, it is made in a way the keys are not easy to extract.
codedokode 2y ago
Youtube seems to be fighting with video downloads? I receive "sign in and prove you are not a bot" every day when using Tor (and without Tor YouTube is not accessible). I don't mind watching ads or solving captchas but Youtube chose the worst method.
- Corrado 2y ago
  You know, the YouTube app on my Amazon FireCube recently started prompting me to log in every time I open it. I don't have to authenticate or anything but I do have to choose a profile. This started a couple of months ago and I didn't really think anything about it. However, it appears as if this behavior might have been a precursor to this new DRM initiative. Every day, YouTube gives me more reasons to avoid it completely.
wenyong3124 2y ago
[dead]
ChrisRR 2y ago
Hey youtube. Stop making your apps so shit and then I wouldn't have to rely on third party apps
- alpaca128 2y ago
  This. I tried out YT Premium for a couple months and the iPad app had at least 5 separate bugs just in the playback queue. Neither adding, removing or reordering videos in the list works without some bug most of the time, and reordering can desync the UI and backend. They can’t even be bothered to test premium features.
jimjimwii 2y ago
Google is not a company I would want to work for.
stuaxo 2y ago
Is this going to break youtube on a lot of Android TVs?

410 points by azalemeth 2y ago

blueflow 2y ago

Can someone recommend an alternative to Youtube for discovering lofi/synthwave songs?

djent 2y ago
Soundcloud
- throwawayq3423 2y ago
  Always was the king of new music discovery.
galleywest200 2y ago
Bandcamp. When you buy an album you get a DRM-free download. https://bandcamp.com/discover/electronic+synthwave https://bandcamp.com/discover/electronic+synthwave
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Fudgel 2y ago
* https://www.di.fm/genres/synth https://www.di.fm/genres/synth * https://www.di.fm/search?q=lofi https://www.di.fm/search?q=lofi

cantrecallmypwd 2y ago

Okay, but: yt-dlp -f315 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqz-KE-bpKQ' [download] 100% of 1.27GiB in 00:00:52 at 24.85MiB/s Works fine with the version I had installed, 2025.02.19. I don't know if this perhaps affects web browsers playing on non-HDCP displays.

pwdisswordfishz 2y ago
Probably still in A/B testing.
strgrd 2y ago
I don't understand how you took the time to test that, but didn't take the time to RTFA: > We are getting reports of YouTube rolling out an experiment to some accounts where normal videos only have DRM formats available on the tv (TVHTML5) Innertube client.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  Honestly this is hard to parse What is a Innertube client? What is a TV format?
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    Innertube is youtube's internal name for some of their libraries
  - drewbitt 2y ago
    Innertube is Youtube's private API. `TV` is a player client. The player clients emulate client applications and provide different video/subtitle formats.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway314155 2y ago
  I don't understand how you RTFA.
throwaway48476 2y ago
It doesn't... yet. They're playing the long game, the DRM noose tightens slowly.
aprilnya 2y ago

tombert 2y ago

I guess it doesn't surprise me that our corporate overlords do everything possible to make it more annoying to watch their media, but I don't have to like it. It's frustrating, because at this point it's going to be extremely difficult to avoid DRM (quasi) legally. I HYPOTHETICALLY have over 400 Blu-ray movies, and about 40 complete series. I HYPOTHETICALLY painstakingly ripped all of them, broke their DRM, and watch it with my Jellyfin server. I don't put these videos on ThePirateBay, and the Blu-rays are all legit copies. I've gotten conflicting information about whether or not what I'm doing is legal, but I certainly don't think what I'm doing there is unethical. But now, how exactly do I get DRM-free movies while also paying for them? They aren't really producing Blu-rays for every movie anymore, if I want to buy a movie I have to get it from Amazon or something and stream it, with the corporation reserving the right to take it away at any time. Is the only way of getting and preserving media piracy now? I genuinely don't know of a way to get DRM-free media anymore without stealing it.

6stringmerc 2y ago
I have done similar work with physical CDs for most of my life to ensure 320kbps quality as mp3 and also share your frustration at the state of the legal landscape and consumer hostile (monopolistic) practices. I get downvoted frequently here for mentioning the landscape should change but simply side-stepping the laws is still just that and throwing tantrums is a bad look (re: my critique of Ars Technica / TechDirt in another thread). Unfortunately it seems like legislation will have to be used to fix the problems we both face, but the likelihood is slim. Perhaps a wholesale collapse of the Federal Government would free states to experiment with new approaches. Thanks for sharing and I really wish I had an answer as well.
- tombert 2y ago
  Yeah, I have a lot of CDs as well, I rip them to FLAC because, even though I doubt I can actually hear a diff between 320kbps and FLAC, it makes me feel like it sounds better. I find it highly doubtful that legislation will save us with this. It seems like congress, at least in the US, has worked hard to make copyrights longer and longer and worse and terrible. I would love it if they prove me wrong, and made copyright in the US much better, but I think corporations are too intermingled with politics to make that likely.

perching_aix 2y ago

Can anyone explain what this actually means? The issue ticket's core points revolve around concepts that are not understandable even for a technologically well-versed general reader, so people will just pivot to the keywords, which won't make for productive discussions. To be more specific: - what is an innertube client? - what is a `tv` innertube client? - what is TVHTML5? - what are "DRM formats"? - what does it mean for them to be "available"? - and finally, why is it of interest if they're only available to tv innertube clients?

nyx 2y ago
In summary, YouTube is A/B testing a change where specific clients receive only DRM-locked video streams. This is notable because yt-dlp impersonates those clients during normal operation. Since yt-dlp won't support decrypting DRM-locked videos, this change breaks yt-dlp's ability to download any videos. To respond to your specific questions: - innertube is the name for private YouTube APIs. (Here's a library that talks to innertube https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/ https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/, although yt-dlp has its own separate client code.) These APIs are intended for consumption by the various types of YouTube client software. - The "tv" client is one of the types of client (see other examples here: https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/blob/main/innertube/config.py#L69 https://github.com/tombulled/innertube/blob/main/innertube/c...) - TVHTML5 is the specific client (as opposed to e.g. TVLITE or TVANDROID)... presumably different TVs run different specific TV clients, with consumption of different specific TV APIs. - When yt-dlp downloads a video, it roughly performs this sequence of steps: pretend to be one of the types of clients supported by innertube; download the top-level video object; parse out the list of possible formats. These formats are like "MP4, 1080p, with AAC audio" or "Ogg, audio only". (The original issue report shows a better example in the verbose output dump.) By default, yt-dlp just grabs the best quality audio and best quality video stream, downloads them, and muxes them together into a single file, but you can configure this behavior. DRM formats are formats that are protected by (presumably) Widevine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widevine, the decryption of which yt-dlp has stated will not be supported. - Available means they're an option for our yt-dlp client to download. Videos don't necessarily have all formats for all clients; for instance, a video might not have a 4K option, because it was never uploaded in 4K. Or it might have a 4K upload, but YouTube won't show 4K options to a client that doesn't support 4K decoding. - In this case, it means this specific internal client type can't download the video, because when yt-dlp reaches out, it gets ONLY formats that are DRM-locked. This is of note, I think, because the TV client is a way to get high-quality video from the YouTube API without having to pass it a valid YouTube login token (further down the issue, the reporter says providing a token allows the "web" innertube client to work).

freedomben 2y ago

This is absolutely terrible news. It's been pretty clear this was coming, and I think fairly clear that this is part of a very high-level strategy for Google. They've been investing heavily in all aspects of this for years now, on the client and server side. It reeks of enshittification to me, but more than that I think we're just about to enter the era of locked/closed tech. A Youtube without DRM does almost feel like an anachronism when you consider the rest of the landscape. Most people willingly buy devices that severely limit what they can do, so I'm not expecting any real pushback from consumers either. Those of us who really care about this will probably just find ourselves faced with a choice: digitally divide (and deprive) ourselves for our principles, or be forcefully shoved into the same box as the lowest common denominator users. Assuming non-evil motivations on the G executives part, I do wonder if AI was the final straw here. In order to build their "moat" on Gemini they need to make it so data collectors can't get to Youtube videos. Only "real" way to ensure that is to DRM things. X/Twitter, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and many others have taken steps as well for similar reasons. I'm sure it's something they wanted to do anyway so maybe AI is more an excuse than a reason, but it's surely not nothing.

RachelF 2y ago
AI is probably the threat executives understand. There are also some pretty good third party YT clients like GrayJay https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/ These let you follow creators across various video platforms in one app. Bad for YT lock-in that Google wants.
unqueued 2y ago
I wish more were done to push back against this consolidation of power by these platforms. We're like frogs that have been stoking the fuel of our own pot. It used to be that DRM was considered to be in conflict with the browser, because it was not acting on behalf of the user. If you must have DRM, then it is on the platform to shoehorn it in through an external plugin, like Silverlight. When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. If we make DRM a switch that can simply be thrown, then it will become the norm, not the exception. And there have been proposals for years to DRM fonts and other absurdities. If a company insists on using DRM, then they should have to shoulder the burden of doing something that a browser was never support to support. The nightmare that we're racing toward is you will only be permitted to cache a trickle of video at a time and your TPM attestation hardware must include a token in every HTTP request. Your browser will just be a software cablebox. They aren't happy about URLs either and would love to require that if you want to share a reference to something, you have to do it on their terms, like generating a url in their app with a hash that expires and limited in how many times it can be viewed. I'm sure influencers will still have the privilege of unlimited sharing. They've been slowly rolling this infrastructure out for the last decade. These are not isolated inconveniences, these are coffin nails.

jeanofthedead 2y ago

Will this kill extensions like Vinegar for Safari?

fancyfredbot 2y ago

Why do people use yt-dlp? Is it to skip ads or watch offline? YouTube premium also lets you watch offline and skip ads but for a price. So surely it's no surprise that Google don't want you to have it for free. I think YouTube premium is too expensive given Google pay so little for the content but I don't think it would be sustainable if everyone got it for free.

mdaniel 2y ago
I mean, in some sense your two cases are indistinguishable since there's no way I'm going to inject ads into my local .mp4 However, I'd guess quite a few folks use yt-dlp for archiving (or watching on an airplane) because YT Premium is not a "we promise this video will still be available next month"
- nyx 2y ago
  Yep, downloading copies of videos so I can watch them on long flights is one of my main use cases for yt-dlp. I suppose someone more sycophantic to the wishes of trillion-dollar corporations could argue that I'm not entitled to do this for free, and that YouTube offers an offline download option as part of its $13.99/mo Premium offering. To them, I'd say "you're right, also go pound sand lol."
m4rtink 2y ago
Making sure you can play the video tomorrow in case Youtube arbitrarily decides it no longer likes it or the account related to it get blocked by some automated algorithm without any recourse for the author, etc.
- i80and 2y ago
  I've heard there are also rare but serious issues where YouTube will just let old videos bitrot so they nominally still exist, but don't play correctly.
  - Chaosvex 2y ago

jareds 2y ago

I already massively reduced my time in the Youtube App by writing some scripts using yt-dlp to download my subscriptions, convert them to mp3 and host the podcast feeds inside my local network. I guess when this eventually breaks I'll probably have to go outside during my free time. It's still working for now so lets hope it continues until spring.

SlackingOff123 2y ago
> using yt-dlp to download my subscriptions, convert them to mp3 and host the podcast feeds inside my local network Hey! I've just had the thought of doing this myself the other day. Do you mind sharing what tools you're using, besides yt-dlp? For example, what are you using to host and generate the rss feed (if that's what you're doing)?
- jareds 2y ago
  I use https://github.com/amsehili/genRSS https://github.com/amsehili/genRSS to create the rss feeds. I host them by running a Docker container that serves the folder on my nas that contains the media and generated xml files.
  - SlackingOff123 2y ago
    That seems to be just what I was looking for. Thanks!
- Minor49er 2y ago
  One tool you might like is MeTube. While it can't schedule anything, I have it running it on a headless Beelink computer. So if I want to grab a video or channel, I can open a browser on any device, go to the server, and tell it to fetch whatever I want. The download location is set to a NAS so I can view the media with any device as well. It even supports extended yt-dlp options, so you can even tell it to use things like SponsorBlock. It's pretty great overall https://github.com/alexta69/metube https://github.com/alexta69/metube

boredhedgehog 2y ago

There must be many content creators who don't want DRM forced onto their videos, so I don't think it can ever be mandatory.

stego-tech 2y ago
I'm sure YouTube's position is that the videos aren't encrypted with DRM, but YouTube is merely encrypting the video stream from their service, which is therefore fine. It's BS, but I would bet that's their legal position. Best load up while you still can, I guess.
lxgr 2y ago
Just making it the default, or mandatory for monetization, would unfortunately be enough to make it stick.
bjackman 2y ago
There are many creators who don't want advertising but that doesn't stop YouTube.
- bitpush 2y ago
  Then upload it onto their own servers? Nobody is forcing anyone to upload to YouTube?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Their network effects are at least a bit coercive.
    - gitaarik 2y ago
      Also YouTube offers unlimited upload space. And their streaming is solid. Something not every video platform can offer.
  - bjackman 2y ago
    Yes you can also just put your video on a DVD and bury it in the garden. But usually the reason they want their videos to be free is that they have a message they want to communicate! If you want people to watch your video you don't have a choice but to upload it to YouTube and let Google make money off your work :(

Animats 2y ago

Does this break Chromium, the non-DRM open source version of Chrome?

unixfox 2y ago
For now, it only concerns the YouTube app for TV.

Seattle3503 2y ago

What is going to happen to Firefox users? The DRM supported by FF is easily broken. Will YouTube drop support for Firefox?

lxgr 2y ago
The primary use of DRM is arguably to bring a system into legal DMCA scope. Among other things, that would very likely be the end of yt-dlp being hosted on Github and maybe even being distributed via apt repositories, pip, homebrew etc.
Clamchop 2y ago
I think the odds of that happening are remote, but there is prior art from other streaming services for only serving reduced quality to clients that don't support DRM, or to clients that they just don't seem to like.
OscarDC 2y ago
Presumably this for now has only been seen for a specific tv client API that yt-dlp use and not all youtube videos (well, https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/4444 https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/issues/4444 also saw it for "members-only" videos but again not all videos). --- Also I suppose you make a reference to software DRM like Widevine L3 vs L1 (same thing for PlayReady SL2000 vs SL3000) which is not exactly Firefox vs Chrome. Firefox has even be known to work on the availability of hardware DRM on windows right now, (through the Media Foundation API I think?). In the worst scenarios seen right now for example seen on services like Netflix, would be to only have lower qualities (e.g. 480p max) on browsers with only Software DRM available (like firefox) and encrypt better qualities with keys only available when there is hardware DRM available. Though I'm not sure YouTube would go that far for now? Netflix, Amazon and such have contracts with right-holders stating those protections as a requirement, but YouTube does not have (IMO thankfully) the same kind of relation and contract with "Youtubers". I think that what YouTube wants to do for now is to greatly lower the amount of people not watching contents through its website/app (and thus not seeing ads). I would even think that this is mostly not about yt-dlp users, but more the huge amount of people relying on some Youtube-to-mp3 website or similar accessible tools. Here enforcing software DRM would be enough to at least temporarily break all those tools and force those users to go back on the platform I guess, and maybe you can also sue some tools' developers once there is an "encryption breaking"-mechanism embedded in it (IANAL)?

tbet33 2y ago

[dead]

jhbadger 2y ago

Will this break things like Newpipe and Freetube?

iforgotpassword 2y ago
In the long run most likely yes :( The door is closing slowly. Great timing with the whole manifest v3 switchover...
unixfox 2y ago
Has always been a cat and mouse game for more than 6 years. There will always be a way as long as google doesn't implement something like "device integrity" in order to watch youtube videos.
- jimjimwii 2y ago
  The analog hole. As long as human eyes can perceive the video, there will always be a way to preserve it, even if we need to fall back to analog (we wont, probably).

buyucu 2y ago

How long until Youtube prevents people from watching videos without logging in?

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I dare them to do it! They won't!
walrus01 2y ago
They already do, go use the latest version of yt-dlp to download like 20 videos from a channel without passing cookies, and a very short time afterwards, everything at your IP address will be blocked from watching any videos unless you sign in.
- buyucu 2y ago
  I download a lot of things from youtube using yt-dlp. So far I never had any issues with getting ip-blocked. In contrast, Instagram ip-blocks me very fast when I use gallery-dl to download a profile. I usually turn my modem on and off to get a new ip address.
Mindwipe 2y ago
YouTube has blocked access to videos considered to be "adult" (not porn but anything vaguely risqué) in Europe without signing into an account and performing credit card age verification for five years.
- zinekeller 2y ago
  This is less of YouTube being YouTube but more of EU being EU (Article 28b of AVMSD), although I do not know if YouTube requires credit card verification in other countries (I know that YouTube now requires sign-in for "adult" videos basically anywhere, but how they implement them exactly is something that I do not know).
0x_rs 2y ago
This is a thing already. "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot. This helps protect our community.", needless to say it applies to people and not bots, and does nothing to protect the "community". It's only going to get worse until people stop giving money to Google. https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1dasxoa/sign_in_to_prove_youre_not_a_bot/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1dasxoa/sign_in_to...

globular-toast 2y ago

Is YouTube the biggest rug pull in history? They built their monopoly by being a public, no bullshit video host. Nobody would have uploaded anything to them if it was like this 15 years ago. Not sure how many people can remember, but it would have been laughable back then to make videos and have someone put ads in the middle of them. But now it's milking time. Eventually they'll push it too far and they might start losing viewers, but not before a few people get very rich. I feel like we're entering a dark period. YouTube showed us what it could be like, but we need to organise ourselves and host videos in a peer to peer fashion if we want to get it back and keep it.

bitpush 2y ago
> Eventually they'll push it too far and they might start losing viewers To what service? Video hosting is famously super-duper expensive. And most creators are uploading for a monetary benefit ($) and ads are part of that equation.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  > Video hosting is famously super-duper expensive Is it? Many of us have been doing it from our home ISPs for as long as YouTube has been around. Centralised video hosting might be expensive (but probably not as expensive as you think), but who says it has to be centralised?
throwawayq3423 2y ago
Not necessarily a rug pull, just a really good example of Enshittification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
aprilnya 2y ago
We’ve seen this so many times… - YouTube as you describe - Discord which did basically the same thing: was the best chat platform ever with no bullshit, then once it became used by everyone, is now turning into shit - Facebook, Twitter… - Countless others I don’t remember off the top of my head Any service like this that’s actually good and is owned by a company is just a timebomb to either becoming shit or shutting down

mdp2021 2y ago

Incidentally, YT just greeted here with a "Sign in to confirm you are not a bot. We do this to protect our community"... There are many ways to tighten a noose... Too bad that some of us will never have an account (just like some of us will not use any DRM system). We will have to find a way to access the wealth indirectly.

cavisne 2y ago

Is there an explainer on how this stuff works on platforms without some sort of DRM hardware? Or does it not work.

Mindwipe 2y ago
Any TV client that has an official YouTube app has been required to have DRM hardware for seven or eight years now, it's literally part of the terms for carrying it.
- GaggiX 2y ago
  How does it work outside of clients, like on the browser, is it difficult for yt-dlp to impersonate a browser compare to a client?
  - Mindwipe 2y ago
    Increasingly browsers can do it too - Edge, Chrome for Windows 11, Firefox on Windows 11 and Safari on Macs have the ability to access hardware DRM if the hardware supports it. They will need a fallback, but reducing the resolution significantly on said fallback would solve that.

Acrobatic_Road 2y ago

On a related note, TubeArchivist just released v0.5, and is officially not in a feature freeze.

liendolucas 2y ago

We're where we are basically because people are happy with it. They are happy not owning a movie, a record, a book. People don't get it. They ones that we do are the minority. And is not that I'm against streaming. Streaming is ok, but all providers should offer the option to have at least a legit digital copy for a reasonable price to own. And by own I mean to have a non DRM protected file of any kind. A simple media file that can be truly owned and reproduced wherever I want. I have absolutely no issues at all paying to own something. Until then I will absolutely not pay a damn penny to these fuckers.

InDubioProRubio 2y ago
1h streaming is 0.5g of carbon. Take that by 6h per day x 365. = 1095g per year per person. Lets assume 2 billion people stream. Thats 2.000.000.000 * 1095 = 2.190.000.000.000 Thats 2.190.000 tons of unnecessary carbondioxide. Piracy is one time, piracy is green, save the planet.
- Eikon 2y ago
  > Take that by 6h per day x 365 You'll need to provide credible sources to support that claim. That assertion seems highly unrealistic.
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    You are correct: https://www.finder.com/uk/stats-facts/tv-statistics https://www.finder.com/uk/stats-facts/tv-statistics its 4.25 h, so i get its even more with countries with older populations (germany, japan)
- account42 2y ago
  What's the carbon cost of what those people would be doing if not "streaming"?

aantix 2y ago

I've been creating a web-based YouTube player for my kids. Will this restrict iframe embedded video playback?

kevingadd 2y ago
Embedded video playback with iframes is already restricted somewhat - many videos are flagged to not play when embedded. So it wouldn't surprise me if they clamp down on that further - but DRM is a separate concern and shouldn't have anything to do with iframes.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

A while back itag 18 and 22, MP4 video that includes an audio track, seemed to disappear in favor of split video and audio, e.g., formats with video only like itag 136 and 137. This requires using ffmpeg to merge an audio track with the video. More recently, it appears they have brought back itag 18.

Aaron2222 2y ago
yt-dlp can take multiple itags and merge them for you as part of the download process. Example: `yt-dlp -f 137+140 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'`
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  yt-dlp can't do this without ffmpeg
  - Aaron2222 2y ago
    You need FFmpeg installed, yes. But it's not a separate step you have to do.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  This requires space for two files, the video file and the audio file. After merge, which is a separate step from download (the "dl" in yt-dlp), the extra file is deleted. Whereas with itag 18, only space for one file is needed and no extra merge step using ffmpeg is required.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
For example, yt-dlp uses ffmpeg

shmerl 2y ago

What a garbage move.

cced 2y ago

How can the web players read the videos if they are encrypted? I’m guessing by definition they need the keys to do so thus would it not be possible for ytdlp to also support this when the encrypted video implementation is fully rolled out?

gloosx 2y ago
I think they use a special hardware DRM chip which is capable of decrypting the videos on the TV, which all TV manufacturers will happily provide, it is made in a way the keys are not easy to extract.

codedokode 2y ago

Youtube seems to be fighting with video downloads? I receive "sign in and prove you are not a bot" every day when using Tor (and without Tor YouTube is not accessible). I don't mind watching ads or solving captchas but Youtube chose the worst method.

Corrado 2y ago
You know, the YouTube app on my Amazon FireCube recently started prompting me to log in every time I open it. I don't have to authenticate or anything but I do have to choose a profile. This started a couple of months ago and I didn't really think anything about it. However, it appears as if this behavior might have been a precursor to this new DRM initiative. Every day, YouTube gives me more reasons to avoid it completely.

wenyong3124 2y ago

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ChrisRR 2y ago

Hey youtube. Stop making your apps so shit and then I wouldn't have to rely on third party apps

alpaca128 2y ago
This. I tried out YT Premium for a couple months and the iPad app had at least 5 separate bugs just in the playback queue. Neither adding, removing or reordering videos in the list works without some bug most of the time, and reordering can desync the UI and backend. They can’t even be bothered to test premium features.

jimjimwii 2y ago

Google is not a company I would want to work for.

stuaxo 2y ago

Is this going to break youtube on a lot of Android TVs?