Regular viewers of Barack Obama’s weekly address on YouTube noticed something new this time around. Right below the video was a new feature: Click to download. Seems Google has decided to add a download option to a select subset of YouTube videos, beginning with those on the ChangeDotGov YouTube channel.
According to Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University Law professor and Obama advisor, the feature won’t be splashed across the site:
“YouTube is rolling this out slowly, initially with content that aspires to be consistent with principles of open government. I’m told it will be offered more generally.”
That last part is interesting. What could “more generally” mean? Hasn’t YouTube been mired enough in content copyright wars?
Daniel Ionescu at PC World offers some theories as to how this might work in practice:
Some say YouTube’s video download capability will be limited to user-generated videos only. On the other hand, it’s likely this new feature will expand across YouTube, though disabled by default – in order to prevent copyrighted content from being downloaded, as ArsTechnica mentions. But most probably, it will be the users who will decide in the end whether they want to allow viewers to download their content.
The new feature is good news — users have been pining for an easy way to download videos from YouTube for a while now. But Google will have to keep a tight lid on the types of content that can be downloaded in order to ensure it stays within the letter of the copyright law–and outside the courtroom.
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