this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
338 points (97.5% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

64456 readers
154 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):

🏴‍☠️ Other communities

FUCK ADOBE!

Torrenting/P2P:

Gaming:


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.

This reeks of DRM.

UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.

UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 12 hours ago

can't wait until we get webrips of heyyeyaaeyaaaeyaeyaa (10 hours)

[–] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 132 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep, yt-dlp has already been fixed. Those devs are really awesome.

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 7 points 11 hours ago

I mean, if you can display it on your screen, there must be a way to also save it.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

I’ve been trying to maintain Invidious for months, eventually google blocks my IP or ASN which leaves me troubleshooting for hours until the realization settles in.

[–] hobovision@mander.xyz 16 points 1 day ago

Smart Tube never broke. So not all clients.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 67 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Slightly over dramatized. This happens basically every month or so. They break it, we fix it. For me newpipe and yt-dlp havent even stopped working despite not updating anything.

[–] christian@lemmy.ml 3 points 12 hours ago

I'm relieved because I saw this post and assumed it meant in a more serious way than normal.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Newpipe works just fine (Germany)

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Same here (USA). I haven't updated my newpipe in a month at least, so it simply never broke. Not a big fan of these unverified headlines.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 2 days ago (6 children)

invidious, yt-dlp, and freetube have broken so many times for me over the last 6 months, I've fallen out of the habit of using YT lately anyway.

It sucks because there is content there that I want but I'm not going to whore myself for it.

[–] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Stop saying content and just say videos ffs

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 points 8 hours ago

Reminds me of when people say "product" instead of "shampoo" or "conditioner" or whatever it is they're actually putting in their hair. Capitalism-coded language.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Thank you! Ffs, I was just sitting here thinking, I am not paying ticketmaster a damn dime, even if I have to miss my childhood heroes before they die. People whore themselves out and it fucks all of society constantly. Can't watch videos because of content monopoly, can't see a concert without getting fucked on exorbitant fees, can't go to the hospital because holy fuck, can't go to school without crippling debt, can't watch TV without supporting terrorists, etc. Like bloody hell the corpos have monopolized and ruined everything. They can go to hell. I'll play my shitty guitar, sing to myself, do home surgery, and go outside or stare at a wall. Fuck this shit!

[–] 418_im_a_teapot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

I whore myself out and pay for the family plan, but I have a good reason.

My dad watches YT almost exclusively so I told him if he shared his password with me I can add him to my plan so he doesn’t see any ads. He fell for it. Now I login into his account ever so often and mark “not interested” on any red pill bullshit I see. It seems to be working.

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You still have alternative platforms to Big Tech though, PeerTube and Odysee like have been mentioned umpteen times in this thread and on Lemmy at large, and not to mention Lemmy itself, and Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Bsky among others.

[–] 0xtero@beehaw.org 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Bsky is just another VC financed grift though.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure but they don't have the content and don't have staying power. If peertube became popular who is going to pay for the bandwidth.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Its users, in part because it uses web torrent which means the traffic of videos is shared peer-to-peer, thus the host doesn't have to pay for a lot of bandwidth.

Also, just like mastodon servers are paid by its users for service I'm sure admins that build up a good reputation with their users or make them aware that they need more to pay for it will pay, or not and they'll just disappear which is really how the web should work, not all these tech oligarchs who have lots of money from exploiting their users and workers.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not an expert on these things but I just don't like the idea of web torrent.

I do however, whole heartedly agree that video producers should pay for their own bandwidth, and be supported by users.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not an expert on these things but I just don't like the idea of web torrent.

How come?

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

IDK really.

I don't dislike it in a "this is terrible technology and no one should be doing it" kind of a way. Just in a "I feel a bit icky about this" kind of way.

There must be privacy considerations right? Do I really want everyone to know what videos I'm watching?

Also, do I really want my client to be providing n upstream connections grinding away at my battery?

They've probably long since solved this I guess but in the early days firefox wasn't supported ?

I just... don't feel like this is the solution to the cost of delivering content.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] fedislug@lemmy.ml 65 points 2 days ago (2 children)

God damn it Google. Moves like this are such an insult to the free and open net that made YouTube popular in the first place

[–] tuff_wizard@aussie.zone 56 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I applaud your belief that Google isn't 100% against a free and open internet these days. They know exactly what they are doing.

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 48 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I don't know about the OP, but Google admitted recently to breaking the open web. By their own admission, and their own words, Google is against an open web. https://lemmy.org/post/1689081

[–] fedislug@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

Oh I know they are! Trying to de-google as much as possible. I was alluding to before their acquisition of the site which, even at the time, we all knew was not going to end well.

This is literally the company that tried to implement WEI

[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

May this be the hoped-for token of enshittification that will spring Peertube and other platforms upwards!

[–] 0xtero@beehaw.org 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I doubt it. Bandwidth and storage costs for distributed video on the scale of YouTube isn’t going to happen without some kind of monetisation beyond stray donations.

Places like Nebula have better operating models but they’re also very niche.

[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

on the scale of YouTube

That's precisely the trick. Don't try to copy Youtube. You're gonna lose. And it's not the Peertube intended use case anyway.

Instead, Peertube and other such platforms should work as cross-indexing domain-specific, configuration-specific video galleries. A retro videogame video archive does not need 4K 120fps Dobly 14.3 audio; they can just encode most of everything in 480i 30fps and their storage costs will go down significantly. A news report / news reel archive can save some costs by encoding as SDR (or even lower) with ~80kbps mono MP3 audio or somesuch, since most of everything past the intro jingle is human voice.

Play to your advantages. Trying to break into a monopoly game where the rules are broken, the only other player is broken, and the entry fees are broken is self-defeating.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Sell ads, pay for storage and transmission fees, pay a pittance to the creators.

Vs

Require a single person to finance everything and hope for enough donations to keep running, no incentivization for content creation.

Peertube is missing a couple of things to even be reasonably viable.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

Exactly.

When the game is rigged, literally, the only winning move is not to play that exact game.

Adapt. ~~Imprevise~~ Innovate. Overcome.

[–] 0xtero@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

should work as cross-indexing domain-specific, configuration-specific video galleries

Yes indeed - this is great idea and probably the only way a "web scale" distributed video service can work - unfortunately this doesn't quite exist yet. Even mature implementations like Mastodon have hard time dealing with "global" free text searching (or any kind of taxonomy). But maybe that's the idea that starts a truly free web!

[–] pfr@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] other_cat@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Android only? Desktop client stopped working last night. Did you do anything special?

[–] pfr@piefed.social 1 points 22 hours ago

Yeah Android. Desktop client (Linux flatpak) was working late into the night too. I haven't checked again today though.. will test when I get home from work

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Not on my phone.

[–] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Needing a full JS engine to run on your user account for Youtube? What are the privacy and security implications here?

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's probably more about control than security. Mandate JS, force people to watch their shit on their proprietary front-end.

I bet ad blockers and even manually blocking related cookies in FF browsers are probably going to break the site and force Chromium browser use too.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 16 points 2 days ago

Fucks sake.

[–] Longmactoppedup@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago

Pipepipe is still working, as long as you are not logged in, and obviously aren't trying to watch age verification gated content.

For how long though who knows.

[–] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I have a program for download yt stuff, will that also break being a full program or is it going to have the same flaw?

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, the lockdown is a YT thing.

[–] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rip my preferred downloader I guess, new version that would update is subscription based.

[–] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

Tartube uses yt-dlp, until Google implements real DRM ala Widevine on YT, which I fully expect them to if they're locking things down this drastically, I mentioned how you can get yt-dlp working again-for now.

load more comments (6 replies)

I just downloaded MKBHD's iPhone Air review, and it played perfectly. 1920p whatever that means (somewhere north of 1440p but not quite 2160p... or 2160p/4K but slightly letterboxed). AV1 (Ay-Vee-Wun, not Ay-Vee-Eye), 30fps... looks and sounds great.

Glad to see the community fixed it fast.

I use jdownloader2 which probably uses yt-dl on the back end. But it also downloads from a metric fuckton of other sites, too. It's like the Swiss Army knife of downloaders. And it's Java, so it runs just as well on my Mac as it did on Windows back when I used that. (Wish they had an official dark theme that was easy to set up though. I know how to do it manually but can't be arsed.)

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

As of today at least, I can still download video/audio from YT on my android phone with NewPipe...

load more comments
view more: next ›