Direct link to yt-dlp's announcement:

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/14404

ad nauseum, unless google plans on deleting youtube, they have the impossible task of letting people watch videos, but also preventing that.

streaming is downloading by another name. once you download data into an other machines buffer, the only real obstacle to treating it like any other structure is, trust me bro, i wont copy it and concatenate it to a persistent file.

They couldn't kill VCRs with legislation, so they're making record-keeping impossible with technology instead.

Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45358980 - September 2025