Legal Video Downloads: YouTube goes Offline

Feb 17, 2009

Until now, watching YouTube videos offline has been an awkward business, possible only with Firefox plugins or similar contraptions. Now, with the help of Creative Commons licenses, this could soon change.

A blog article entitled "YouTube goes Offline" explains the strategy. The video platform wants to promote free content, and in future allow its users to download videos for offline viewing - a wide spread wish amongst YouTube fans that could now be made possible with the use of a Creative Commons license.

YouTube Product Manager Thai Tran writes in the blog; "Many video creators on YouTube want their work to be seen far and wide. They don't mind sharing their work, provided that they get the proper credit." The Creative Commons license is a way of fulfilling both free distribution and the appropriate naming of names. In a post on his blog, Lawrence Lessig, creator of the Commons Licenses welcomes the move by YouTube.

Google partners will be given the choice of offering videos for free or for a small surcharge probably to be paid via Google Checkout, with Google making different licenses available. Google cites various University projects offering free student lectures as examples and some of its commercial partners are experimenting with the possibilities for advertising channels.

On the practical side, YouTube will in future have a "download" button below its videos, with a "My Purchases" tab under "My Videos". Still in the testphase, the whole concept is being discussed here.

Related content

  • Downloading Web Video

    With the right tools, you can store YouTube movies on your hard disk and view them when Internet access is unsatisfactory or unavailable.

  • Tube Archivist

    Tube Archivist indexes videos or entire channels from YouTube in order to download them with the help of the yt-dlp tool.

  • YouTube Players

    YouTube offers more than just funny kitten movies; you will also find more than 60 million music videos. With a native YouTube client for Linux, you can use this online jukebox as conveniently as your local music collection.

  • YouTube Software Engineer Weighs in on Flash and HTML5

    Balancing the need for an open web and user needs.

  • Google Launches New Channel On YouTube

    Ellen Ko of Google's Open Source Team announces the creation of a new Google YouTube channel, googleOSPO, created to house all the Google and open source related videos in one place.

Comments

  • convert video to youtube

    hi,buddy
    This is a very significative article and i trust youtube video can be diffuse free in the future.

    in addtion ,cause .FLV format has became the main format applied in the web-videos. Youtube,google video,yahoo video ...are all .FLV format now .so if u wanna add video to Youtube or google video,i recommend u this tool: WS video to flash encoder

    1.It can convert MPEG, AVI, MOV, WMV, MP4 and even HD video as M2TS, TP, TRP, TS to flash FLV,SWF;
    2.Batches convert & merge several video files into one
    3.Provide 12 beautiful flash players
    4.Add hyperlink, text, image to your own flash.

    Free download Today >>>
    http://www.flashontv.com/video-to-flash.html#135
  • With a YouTube Downloader, it is no use to pay for the youtube content.

    With a YouTube Downloader, it is no use to pay for the youtube content.

    http://www.flash-on-tv.com/youtube-downloader.html#124

    What Youtube downloader can do ?

    1. download any video from YouTube.com ,google,yahoo,etc.

    2.Convert flv to WMV, AVI, 3GP, M4V, MPEG, MP4, MOV, VOB,MP3,WMA,etc

    3. Transfer youtube video to iPod nano, iPhone, Zune, PSP or other portable players.
comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News