Although YouTube’s terms of service still officially prohibit downloading. The weekly addresses and the announcements posted by Obama’s “ChangeDotGov” user on YouTube can now be downloaded. Look for a “Click to Download” link just below the Play button. (This link only appears on the YouTube page for the video, not when the video is embedded, such as on the change.gov site or a blog post.)
Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8f9Zqap6U
If you are interested in capturing presidential videos to edit and display in class, this is an opportunity to get them from YouTube without resorting to the shadier methods of capturing content from the site. If you are interested in capturing other content from YouTube, this is an interesting development. Perhaps we will soon see more public domain footage made available this way.
Stay tuned.
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February 13, 2009 UPDATE: More groups are making their YouTube content available for download, some for free, some for a fee. See the official announcement from YouTube: “YouTube Goes Offline“