YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

by makeworld on 6/1/2021, 1:15 PM with 445 comments
  • by toto444 on 6/1/2021, 2:00 PM

    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!

  • by alphabet9000 on 6/1/2021, 6:56 PM

    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

    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/bga...

    [1] https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif

  • by bruiseralmighty on 6/1/2021, 2:58 PM

    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.

  • by alimbada on 6/1/2021, 1:49 PM

    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.

  • by theamk on 6/1/2021, 1:49 PM

    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

  • by MattPalmer1086 on 6/1/2021, 4:01 PM

    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.

  • by wizzwizz4 on 6/1/2021, 2:43 PM

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

  • by slazaro on 6/1/2021, 2:31 PM

    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).

  • by bencollier49 on 6/1/2021, 2:15 PM

    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.

  • by marcodiego on 6/1/2021, 1:44 PM

    I remember 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.

  • by nonamesleft on 6/1/2021, 1:23 PM

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

  • by mrvenkman on 6/1/2021, 3:05 PM

    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.

  • by llacb47 on 6/1/2021, 4:54 PM

    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

  • by spentu on 6/1/2021, 2:06 PM

    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...

  • by dredmorbius on 6/1/2021, 2:04 PM

    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/)

  • by bouncycastle on 6/1/2021, 2:59 PM

    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)

  • by noisy_boy on 6/1/2021, 2:10 PM

    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!

  • by NiceWayToDoIT on 6/1/2021, 5:01 PM

    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/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.

  • by hk1337 on 6/1/2021, 2:14 PM

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

  • by discardedrefuse on 6/1/2021, 2:12 PM

    I wonder how this is going to affect NewPipe.

  • by gnoll_of_gozag on 6/1/2021, 4:58 PM

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

  • by gsich on 6/1/2021, 3:43 PM

    This [0] still works, so it should be doable by youtube-dl too.

    0: https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-Restrictio...

  • by heywherelogingo on 6/1/2021, 3:27 PM

    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.

  • by chaz6 on 6/1/2021, 3:17 PM

    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.

  • by rolph on 6/1/2021, 6:47 PM

    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.<<

  • by hedora on 6/1/2021, 4:43 PM

    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.

  • by globular-toast on 6/1/2021, 4:07 PM

    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.

  • by pa9am on 6/1/2021, 6:18 PM

    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.

  • by ficiek on 6/1/2021, 4:59 PM

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

  • by doggodaddo78 on 6/1/2021, 4:32 PM

    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?

  • by dharmab on 6/1/2021, 1:59 PM

    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.

  • by Sleepytime on 6/1/2021, 5:24 PM

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

  • by wodenokoto on 6/1/2021, 9:28 PM

    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.

  • by everdrive on 6/1/2021, 2:42 PM

    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.

  • by fapjacks on 6/1/2021, 5:24 PM

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

  • by crispyambulance on 6/1/2021, 6:20 PM

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

  • by circa on 6/2/2021, 12:29 PM

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

  • by jokoon on 6/1/2021, 2:59 PM

    I found a way to download one through some proxy thing

    can't remember which

  • by YetAnotherNick on 6/1/2021, 8:26 PM

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

  • by tubbyjr on 6/1/2021, 7:35 PM

    Use alternate youtube front-ends like Invidious

  • by bitL on 6/1/2021, 10:26 PM

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

  • by megous on 6/1/2021, 5:20 PM

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

  • by draw_down on 6/1/2021, 3:37 PM

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

  • by williesleg on 6/1/2021, 2:13 PM

    Who cares? Time to go to tick tack.

  • by macinjosh on 6/1/2021, 2:30 PM

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

  • by doggodaddo78 on 6/1/2021, 4:24 PM

    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.

  • by miles on 6/1/2021, 6:58 PM

    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#issuecom...

    https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...

  • by stefan_ on 6/1/2021, 1:36 PM

    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.