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YouTube today made the announcement that they are allowing the download of videos stored on their servers.

We are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to find, watch, and share videos. Many of you have told us that you wanted to take your favorite videos offline. So we’ve started working with a few partners who want their videos shared universally and even enjoyed away from an Internet connection.

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. Using Creative Commons licenses, we’re giving our partners and community more choices to make that happen. Creative Commons licenses permit people to reuse downloaded content under certain conditions.

We’re also testing an option that gives video owners the ability to permit downloading of their videos from YouTube. Partners could choose to offer their video downloads for free or for a small fee paid through Google Checkout. Partners can set prices and decide which license they want to attach to the downloaded video files (for more info on the types of licenses, take a look here).

Well, I think its great that YouTube is coming up with a way to more legitimately allow video downloads (and monetize it) but there are already scripts available that allow the downloading of YouTube content (both the high quality and HD versions).

For reference the code to download high quality videos is:
javascript:if(document.location.href.match(/http:%5C/%5C/%5Ba-zA-Z%5C.%5D*youtube%5C.com%5C/watch/))%7Bdocument.location.href='http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt=18&video_id='+swfArgs%5B'video_id'%5D+'&t='+swfArgs%5B't'%5D%7D

and the code to download HD videos are:
javascript:if(document.location.href.match(/http:\/\/[a-zA-Z\.]*youtube\.com\/watch/)){document.location.href='http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt=22&video_id='+swfArgs['video_id']+'&t='+swfArgs['t']}

(Or just drag these two links to your browsers bookmark bar YouTube HQ Download and YouTube HD Download)

Why anyone would use YouTubes paid method is beyond me.

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