Hell, how is Creative Commons licence they totally give you option to select, work in case of videos that can't be downloaded in any way?
For ballpark numbers, youtube dedicates 1200kbps to 1080p videos in VP9. Let's say we have a 10 minute video with an RPM of $3.
We can arrange a CDN to deliver files at $0.005 per GB without even putting effort into it. And that's at a super low scale. The price drops a lot from there as things get bigger. So I'll use that number, and note that it's being generous to google.
So that's 0.3 cents of revenue per watch, which is 90MB of data that would cost .045 cents to deliver.
One view would pay for about 7 downloads. And how many downloads are we likely to see? Probably under 10% of viewers.
I'd turn that option on.
That's... quite a response in defense of a tool intended for breaching TOS and performing copyright infringement. Can you clarify exactly who it is and isn't OK to steal from, again? I'm struggling here.
Does using a different User Agent instead of a typical browser amount to copyright infringement in any jurisdiction?
You can see the terms of service here:
https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms
In particular, the first three points in the "permissions and restrictions" section explicitly prohibit tools like youtube-dl. I've pasted these below:
The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to:
1. access, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, alter, modify or otherwise use any part of the Service or any Content except: (a) as specifically permitted by the Service; (b) with prior written permission from YouTube and, if applicable, the respective rights holders; or (c) as permitted by applicable law;
2. circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage, or otherwise interfere with the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related features or features that: (a) prevent or restrict the copying or other use of Content; or (b) limit the use of the Service or Content;
3. access the Service using any automated means (such as robots, botnets or scrapers) except: (a) in the case of public search engines, in accordance with YouTube’s robots.txt file; (b) with YouTube’s prior written permission; or (c) as permitted by applicable law;
YouTube's ToS does nothing to change applicable law, which was my stated question. What YouTube wants is not necessarily what the law says.
Besides, YouTube does not hold copyright on most videos, so their ToS does magically not allow them to claim copyright infringement.
It's starting to become Widevine bullshit all over again.