How to Judge Is It Legal to Download YouTube Videos? (yue zhao)

One of my friend once go to the internet to ask for help that whether is it legal to put some YouTube videos onto his PSP. And the only way is to download the videos first. Since all the coopyright issues and licenses he cannot be sure, and at the same time, he found some beautiful music and he wanted to use it to make a mashup. Of course, according to the terms of usage set by YouTube, as long as you don't benefit from distributing the videos you download. Thus today, as the internet is having a hot debate whether it is legal to download YouTube videos, I want to make you more clear.

Since the broth of YouTube, it has become more and more popular among the world. Some people even cannot live without the site. And lots of people trudge the grey area to download YouTube videos for untethered enjoyment. People not only download them, but also transfer them onto their other portable devices through iPod transfer to make their short haul more enjoyable. And with the several controversies, YouTube has also become the center. One of the most publicized and common issue is the copyright infringement problem. Since the site does not prescreen videos before they appear on the site, and the result is that there are thousands of members uploading diver videos each second. Besides the hilarious pranks and crazy stunts about their daily life, they make videos and them upload them, but also they would upload some interesting segments of some paid shows or clips from a new released movies to share with other people. Then their behavior would offend the copyright law set by the state. Even though you do not use them to make money, just putting them online, this act would damage the benefit of the movie or shows creators. Thus, when you have the same thought, you should figure out whether the shows you are watching is having strict copyright protection or not. Avoiding to bring you and YouTube troubles.

Another drastic debate is between some corporations and the online community. Since you may know, that YouTube has formed partnerships with certain major television studios like BBC, and organizations like Universal Music, and notable celebrities like Paris Hilton and Oprah Winfrey, I will not say more about the details, if you are interesting, you can search yourself. Supposing you love to make videos and upload them to YouTube to earn yourself reputation or to make money, those videos about celebrities would damage your benefit. Or even worse, you may guess they are using underhanded methods to ensure their videos rise to the top YouTube's various video lists. As a result, your video would be not hit by hundreds of people as you expected. They would grab the first rank of the list, not you. Thus you would be angry about their decision.

To sum up, according to its terms:"You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licencors of the Content." If you just download the videos for your own enjoyment, and the video is not against the copyright protection, you can download them as you want. Maybe you need this free KeepVid alternative software to help you download them.

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