On October 23, 2020, at the request of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the main repository of the youtube-dl program and its popular forks were removed from GitHub. According to the RIAA, the main objectives of the project are:
- Bypassing protection used by streaming services (for example YouTube)
- Distribution of music videos and audio recordings without the permission of the rightful owner.
In the text of its letter, the RIAA emphasizes that the source code should be used to build "a console program for downloading videos from YouTube and some other sites." In addition, the instructions for the program provide examples of downloading the following copyrighted works:
- Icona Pop - I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) [Official Video], owned by Warner Music Group
- Justin Timberlake - Tunnel Vision (Explicit), owned by Sony Music Group
- Taylor Swift - Shake it Off, owned / exclusively licensed by Universal Music Group
The comments in the source code imply that it is designed to bypass YouTube's technological protection against unauthorized access and copying.
The removal request has already been granted by GitHub and the repository has been removed .