January 21, 2009 by Matt Thomas
For years now one of the main complaints of YouTube users has been the conspicuous lack of a download function on the site. In this regard, YouTube has always kept a tight leash on all of its content due to copyright issues and the simple fact that they would prefer us to keep returning to the site to view videos, rather than simply going to our C Drives.
Until now, that is. Yesterday the Barack Obama You tube channel was chosen as a testing ground for the first ever downloadable YouTube video. Google apparently saw the huge traffic that anything Obama related was sure to get yesterday as the perfect opportunity to experiment with this feature. This is significant because it indicates that in some instances Google believe that the download restriction can be waived.
However, it is too soon to predict whether or not Google plan to introduce this function to any more of their videos. Knowing how close some of the Google execs were to the Obama campaign, its also possible that their aim was simply to provide YouTube users with a historic Obama keepsake. Its also possible that the company may have just wanted to see if they could do it, just to know the option was there for the future.
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