Railway•14mo ago

Using yt-dlp to extract information

As far as I remember before when trying to use yt-dlp in a project - an error immediately appeared at the build stage. I would like to clarify this point now, as yt-dlp doesn't seem to violate the usage rules and it is not in https://railway.app/legal/fair-use. So I'd like to ask if it's possible to use it in projects now, I'll tell you up front - I need it for extracting information from tiktok videos, it will be something like that:

import yt_dlp

def get_tiktok(url):
    ydl_opts = {'quiet': True, 'extract_flat': True}
    with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
        info_dict = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False)
        print(info_dict)

video_url = 'url to video'
get_tiktok(video_url)

import yt_dlp

def get_tiktok(url):
    ydl_opts = {'quiet': True, 'extract_flat': True}
    with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
        info_dict = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False)
        print(info_dict)

video_url = 'url to video'
get_tiktok(video_url)

Solution:

well given the fact I don't work for Railway I have no real power here, I am just telling you the facts, you are free to do what you want, just know people have been banned for similar things

Jump to solution

16 Replies

Percy•14mo ago

Project ID: N/A

x4zxOP•14mo ago

Also if the use of yt-dlp is still forbidden. Maybe someone knows an alternative solution

Brody•14mo ago

even thought you aren't using it to download videos, it would still count as crawling or scraping, and in this instance, it wouldn't be allowed since your use of yt-dlp could hinder people who are using official APIs

x4zxOP•14mo ago

I take it you are referring to the official TikTok API? But how can yt-dlp interfere with them? It turns out that even collecting information on hosting is forbidden - after all, scrapers are often used for this purpose

Brody•14mo ago

you can't, that's why it's not allowed, it doesn't use official APIs

x4zxOP•14mo ago

Do you know of any alternatives? It just turns out that all unofficial APIs cannot be used on hosting Scrapers implemented with bs4 I take it are also forbidden?

Brody•14mo ago

does tick-tock have an official api

x4zxOP•14mo ago

It's there, it's just hard to access it.

Brody•14mo ago

that doesn't sound very official then

x4zxOP•14mo ago

But as for me you have too much faith in the honesty of people, I am sure that on your hosting thousands of projects in which there are scrapers

Brody•14mo ago

there's zero people hosting scrappers on my platform

x4zxOP•14mo ago

you can see for yourself https://developers.tiktok.com/doc/display-api-overview/ to get access you have to create your own application, then verify it. Too many unnecessary steps

TikTok for Developers

Brody•14mo ago

that seems totally reasonable

x4zxOP•14mo ago

And after all that, you get very limited functionality

Solution

Brody•14mo ago

well given the fact I don't work for Railway I have no real power here, I am just telling you the facts, you are free to do what you want, just know people have been banned for similar things

x4zxOP•14mo ago

got it, thank you

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Programming

Using yt-dlp to extract information