Users to YouTube: let us record your videos

If YouTube wants to be the future of broadcast, then it also has to support the DVR of tomorrow. That’s the main argument of a new online petition urging Google to allow third-party tools and services that record content from YouTube, which has attracted more than 170,000 signatures in just three days.

The petition was launched in reaction to reports that Google has been sending cease-and-desist letters to YouTube-MP3.org, Music-Clips.net and other sites, demanding to take down offerings that allow users to download the audio tracks of YouTube videos. In the letter, a YouTube lawyer referred to the site’s Terms of Service, which don’t allow the downloading of content that isn’t made available for download by YouTube itself. The petition, on the other hand, argues that downloading MP3 files from YouTube is simply an act of recording media, comparable to the DVR or even the cassette recorder.