Saavn (saavn.com) support

[aviraldg]

Please follow the guide below

• You will be asked some questions and requested to provide some information, please read them carefully and answer honestly
• Put an x into all the boxes [ ] relevant to your issue (like that [x])
• Use Preview tab to see how your issue will actually look like

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Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2016.10.02. If it's not read this FAQ entry and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected.

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2016.10.02

Before submitting an issue make sure you have:

• At least skimmed through README and most notably FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

What is the purpose of your issue?

• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
• Question
• Other

Examples:

• Single audio: http://www.saavn.com/s/song/hindi/Ae-Dil-Hai-Mushkil/Ae-Dil-Hai-Mushkil/Cg0AdD0DeQU
• Playlist: http://www.saavn.com/s/featured/hindi/Raghu_Dixit_-_Coke_Studio_Picks/NGesoSZlFG4_

[shirishag75]

+1 to this site if possible.

[sudovijay]

@yan12125 this one is more like spotify (https://www.spotify.com) but for indian songs mostly. Though its pretty easy to extract songs from this site but tbh you don't wanna add it. copyright & stuff!

[yan12125]

@sudovijay Did you mean saavn.com does not have rights to distribute those songs? Seems Google's transparency report indicates the opposite: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/searchdata/domains/?id=saavn.com

[therohanchawla]

It does have rights if not they wouldn't be able to operate commercially.
Also I think all of the content are DRM protected.

[shirishag75]

There is false dichotomy at work here. For instance, no youtube does not but it still does. Some music providers (like shemaroo.com) have stopped all their videos on youtube.com but that does not mean that the whole platform is wrong.

Also if the songs are DRM protected then AFAIK they can be done only through copyright holders only so there certainly is mix-up there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management . I would assume and presume it would be highly costly and legally expensive for saavn or any other digital audio service provider to become false owners of intellectual property. There has to be a deal between the companies. Also see http://www.saavn.com/corporate/music-rights as well as http://www.medianama.com/2016/11/223-saavn-singtel-music-singapore/ and http://www.medianama.com/2016/06/223-saavn-funding-guy-oseary/ . They have done 3-4 rounds of fund-raising. Are you saying all the investors are idiots http://www.financialexpress.com/entertainment/music-streaming-apps-services-heres-how-apple-music-gaana-saavn-to-hungama-stack-up-against-each-other/366523/ and https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/meet-the-streaming-service-with-20m-users-thats-also-a-record-label/ . At the very least, no research seems to have been done and facts pulled out of air.

Another thing, saavn is headquarted in US where copyright intervention is the highest. See eff.org or other consumer activist organisations. If a company wanted to do something illegal like what is being suggested then British Virgin islands or other places would have been much better.

Disclaimer - I have no other relationship with saavn except I use their app. on my android phone as well.

[awalgarg]

Saavn is now bought by Jio and renamed to JioSaavn and the domain has moved too. I've written a patch containing an extractor, but there are some issues:

1. The website doesn't allow downloads without logging in, so credentials must be provided for any download. (There are 30 second previews without credentials but I don't think anyone would want support for those.)
2. Iterating on the available formats is a mess. To get final url for any given bitrate, an HTTP request must be sent. So just for finding the available n formats, we'd send n separate requests. The site itself lists 4 available formats (upto 128k), however there is 320k (mistakenly exposed premium only content?) which works best for every single song I could try. So I've just set it to use 320k as the only format.
3. It seems we can just create a new user each time the program is invoked - there is no email verification or captcha. However I don't think shipping code to do that with youtube-dl is a good idea.

Would these restrictions be acceptable? cc @dstftw