You know, so you can prevent things being "memory holed", as well as downloaded and re-uploaded to to other youtube COMPETITORS *especially when the author gives you permission*  It also facilitates downloading your entire archive on Youtube so YOU can leave and go elsewhere...

Guess what just happened?

1. A copyright takedown notice was served against the youtube-dl sourcecode -- claiming that the software is only used for copyright infringement.
2. Almost immediately after this -- once the sourcecode repository was taken down, so no tweaks large or small could be done to the program -- Youtube tweaked their system -- a trivial change -- making youtube-dl no longer work!

Normally the tweak Youtube did wouldn't do *anything*, because in a game of cat-and-mouse, the authors of Youtube-dl would simply fix the program so it works again.

BUT NOT ANYMORE -- SINCE THE SOURCE CODE REPOSITORY WAS JUST TAKEN DOWN.

Unprecedented times, guys. It must be the election.

It works for me right now. Youtube made a change which made an old iteration useless, but it doesn't matter for this Open Source project. If their site goes, there's loads of mirror links.

Youtube Dl has a working file. A big thing for Youtube is to get people to shell out for Youtube premium. Youtube bleeds money for Alphabet Corporation. Globo Homo have more than just stopping Youtube downloads to put China Joe into the Presidency.

They took down the source code repository. That makes keeping the software up-to-date much more difficult. Changes can no longer be made and distributed to the various Linux distributions, etc.

I have version 2020.11.01.1 on my PC, which is the LATEST VERSION, and it no longer works as of yesterday. I tried on 2 different IP addresses, so it's not just me being blocked.

If you have a newer version than that, can you share with us how you got it? I'm a professional, and I can't find a single one of the "loads of mirror links" you speak of.

I just recently started using NewPipe and it supports downloading videos as mp4 and mp3 and blocks ads. It's also open source. An alternative to look at while this gets resolved

It looks like that's for Android. 
Does anyone use an old fashioned desktop PC anymore? 

Here is another "youtube-dl" repository, which already fixed the issue with downloading SINGLE videos, but they're still working on a fix for downloading playlists.

https://github.com/l1ving/youtube-dl/issues/31

I downloaded their latest release, which is 11.10.2020, and it works with single videos. Better than nothing, for now. But I bet they'll have playlists working as well, in a day or two.

We need an army of tech-savvy trads to grow a visible alternative media presence, including standard and social media, as well as to combat and evade attempts to silence our voices on the MPM (mainstream pagan media).

We need Catholic coders and hackers.  Hacking is sometimes a moral activity, by the way.  It's an umbrella term now, referring to the intricacies of coding and decoding.  Many of my computer science students partake of it in legitimate venues, such as public hacking events. Doing so refines and advances their computer skills, among other benefits.

Many trads on this and other forums may already be aware of this fact, but others do not, and assume that hacking refers to a dishonest and harmful activity, always sinful and always punishable by law.

https://banned.video/ appears to be a database of many censored YouTube videos.

Today, on the main original youtube-dl website a new version was released (11.12.2020) which fixes the download playlists problem. Great news for now!