I have a proposed operation, with the full text for it.
Can you guys review it and make suggestions on if there are any changes that need to be made. Also, would it be better to post the final version on >>>/gamergatehq/ or >>>/t/ ?
Operation Download And Conquer
Given how majority of the internet's audio and video services are provided by Google thanks to Youtube, the purpose of this operation is to loosen the death-grip that has taken hold. This process will only require that you have a steady internet connection and (Advisably) 100 GB of free space. Here is the plan:
Step 1
Download the latest versions of FFMpeg and Youtube-DL, and put all the programs into the same folder:
http://ffmpeg.org/
https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html
Step 2
Hold “Shift” and right-click in an empty part of the folder and select “Open command window here”. After the command line interface opens, paste the following code:
LOGFILE="$PWD/logs/$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S.%N").log"
exec 3>&1 4>&2 >>$LOGFILE 2>&1
youtube-dl --verbose --ignore-errors --no-continue --no-overwrites --keep-video --no-post-overwrites --download-archive archive.txt --write-description --write-info-json --write-annotations --write-thumbnail --all-subs --output "%(uploader)s-(%(uploader_id)s)/%(upload_date)s-%(title)s/%(upload_date)s-%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" -f bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a] -- $1
Step 3
Replace the “$1” in the final line with the URL of any Youtube video, playlist or channel that you want to download. If you input a video URL, it will just download the video. If it's a playlist URL, it will download all the videos from the playlist. And, if it's a channel URL, it will download all the videos posted on the channel and all of the videos listed in the channels playlist(s) (Which may include some videos from other channels).
Make sure that the video downloaded by performing the final line 3-5 times. Sometimes videos disconnect midway through, so you may need to perform this process several times, especially for longer videos.
For videos hidden behind age-gate, there are three ways to process this, however the first two options requires that you have a Youtube account. For the first option, what you do is that you log into your Youtube account, then proceed to dump the your browser's cookies through a browser extension. Then you take that dumped file, put it in the same folder as the previously downloaded programs, add
after “youtube-dl” and the rest of the last line, and change the word “FILE” to the actual cookies file that you put into the folder.
The second method requires that, after logging into Youtube, you then proceed to go to any video. Open the developer tab in your browser, copy the cookies requested by Youtube, and proceed to make your own cookies file:
https://archive.vn/FK3mH
The third option is to use yt-dlp (However, a few age-gated videos will still be inaccessible):
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#workarounds
In addition, you may encounter, if you download too many video in a short time, a “HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests” message when downloading videos. This can be bypassed by either filling out the Captcha on the Youtube website and dumping the cookies file afterwards or changing your IP address.
Step 4
Use the file search function on your computer and delete all “.part” files, audio files, and “.fXXX” video files found in the folder. The “.part” files are videos that were unable to be downloaded for whatever reason and should be reattempted at a later date or downloaded through another method. Meanwhile, the audio files and the “.fXXX” video files are just the individual audio and video for each Youtube video. Due to the way the videos are downloaded using FFMpeg, these are combined into one big video file after both files have downloaded, so they can be immediately deleted these files as they end up wasting space. This is also why it's advised to have 100 GB of free space due to how this process can add up quite fast, especially for channels with longer videos or an long upload history.
Step 5
Create an account to any and all video sites that you wish to re-upload the video on. Here are some of the more well-known alternative, as well as some recommended sites:
AfreecaTV:
https://www.afreecatv.com/
Bitchute:
https://www.bitchute.com/
BitTube:
https://bittube.tv/
D.tube:
https://d.tube/
Dailymotion:
https://www.dailymotion.com/
LBRY:
https://lbry.com/
NicoNico:
https://www.nicovideo.jp/
Rumble:
https://rumble.com/
Veoh:
https://www.veoh.com/
VidLii:
https://www.vidlii.com/
Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/
If you do not want to use your personal email, you can create a temporary one using any one of the numerous “10 minute email” websites, Cock.li (If you have a referal link), or you can create your own email address:
https://archive.fo/okVq4[Expand Post]
After the account is created, and you fulfill whatever silly verification demands the site has, then start uploading the videos you just downloaded. If you want to do a straight upload, just select the video file in the folder (It should be the only one there if you followed the previous step; if not, upload the video files that doesn't end in “.fXXX”) and upload that. If you want to preserve all of the video's content, here's a breakdown of all the files so you know what to reinsert. The “.description” files are files containing all the text from the video's description, and can be opened in Notepad to copy and paste. The image located in the folder is the Youtube thumbnail of the video. The “.json” file is the video's configuration file, which is only important for the purposes of annotations made post upload on Youtube. The “.m4a” file is just the video's audio file and can be deleted. The “.mp4” file is the actual video itself; if there are two “.mp4” files, delete the one ending in “.fXXX” as that's just the original video file without any audio. The “.vtt” file(s) is the official subtitles attached to the video.
In addition, it should be noted that video files are titles in the following manner “[Date of upload by Year/Month/Day]-[Video name]-[Original video URL]”, so you should only need include the videos name and none of the other information.
Also, it is advised that videos re-uploaded by you should have the disclaimer in the description “I did/do not create, publish, nor own the original video” for the purposes of foregoing and delaying your account from being deleted or harassed.