Apple censoring youtube content on idevices

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miir
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Apple censoring youtube content on idevices

Post by miir »

So in the past couple of weeks Apple has gotten ridiculously aggressive in blocking music video content from Youtube.
It used to be you'd get the occasional 'format not supported' error when trying to view music videos that Apple had blocked.

I was just going through some of my youtube playlists and found that every single 'official' music video is now blocked.
They don't even come up in searches within the youtube app.

If this is the direction that Apple is heading with ios (actively blocking media that you haven't purchased from them), I can't see myself purchasing any more of their devices in the future.
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Re: Apple censoring youtube content on idevices

Post by Boogahz »

You're the first person I've heard about this from in around a year. Which official "channels" are you talking about? The official channels I have used ended up getting moved over to the Vevo app, which I doubt was Apple's doing.
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Re: Apple censoring youtube content on idevices

Post by Boogahz »

yeah, pretty sure it isn't Apple doing it...knew I had read about someone checking with Firefox last year:
Yes, there is specific blocking of music videos (and other copyrighted content) on the iPhone.
Yes, it is very annoying.

However, this is not being done by Apple on the device end.
It is being done by Youtube, most likely in agreement with the record companies.

How do I know?
I downloaded an extension for Firefox called User Agent Switcher, which lets you choose how your browser will be identified on various websites. So I set it to identify as an iPhone.
And guess what? Videos stopped working. Specifically, I got a screen that looked like this:

...

This means that it's not the iPhone itself (or Apple) blocking these videos. It's Youtube, restricting access when the request appears to come from an iPhone.

Also, MiTube has since been pulled from the App store. Are there any decent workarounds for those of us who have chosen not to jailbreak?
I know Vevo has since released a free iPhone app, which works well. However, there are some videos that Vevo doesn't have, such as the Rammstein video in my example. So I'm still left looking for a solution.
Others also had the same problem with the same videos on Android devices.
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Re: Apple censoring youtube content on idevices

Post by Siji »

Fuck vevo.
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