diff --git a/youtube-dl b/youtube-dl
index 48c13b701..8cfa6dfd6 100755
--- a/youtube-dl
+++ b/youtube-dl
@@ -844,6 +844,14 @@ class YoutubeIE(InfoExtractor):
 			except (urllib2.URLError, httplib.HTTPException, socket.error), err:
 				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: unable to download video info webpage: %s' % str(err))
 				return
+		if 'token' not in video_info:
+			if 'reason' in video_info:
+				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: YouTube said: %s' % video_info['reason'][0])
+			else:
+				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: "token" parameter not in video info for unknown reason')
+			return
+
+		# Start extracting information
 		self.report_information_extraction(video_id)
 
 		# uploader