A Comprehensive Guide – Is It Legal to Download YouTube Videos

Is It Legal to Download YouTube Videos?

As the most popular video sharing website, YouTube has gained so many loyal fans and many of you would like to download your favorite ones for offline playback on devices. Speaking of YouTube download, it's hard to ignore its related topic: "Is it legal to download YouTube videos?" This is a controversial issue and many people are still confused about it.

YouTube Download Legal

As for the question "Is it legal to download from YouTube", YouTube's Terms of Service has clearly stated that "You shall not download any Content unless you see a ‘download’ or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content. 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 licensors of the Content."

Additionally, the advertising program has taken a substantial portion of YouTube’s revenue. That means the more visitors click on YouTube videos, the more YouTube gains from ads sales. So if you get the YouTube video download for offline playback, you have removed the potential money-making chance.

Seeing these, many people would jump up to a conclusion that it is totally illegal to download video from YouTube platform. But hold on a second. When you search on YouTube about "YouTube download", there would be so many tutorials. So here’s the question, if get YouTube sources download is illegal, why are there so many YouTube downloading guides on YouTube? Therefore, we need to analyze specific issues and take "fair use" into full consideration.

What Is "Fair Use" and How It Works?

Fair use is a legal doctrine that says you can limitedly use copyright-protected sources in some circumstances without permission of the copyright owner. It is determined by a judge, who analyzes a specific case based on a set of principles in the United States. Specifically, fair use of YouTube sources can be applied to the following situations:

1. DO NOT share or post the downloaded YouTube videos that are copyright protected elsewhere.

2. You can take the downloaded YouTube videos merely for commentary, research, teaching, and news reporting or other nonprofit activities.

3. Using materials from downloaded videos to parody the original work for non-commercial use is more likely to be fair.

4. Your creation has added new expression, meaning, or message to the original downloaded videos.

5. Uploaders can download the YouTube videos that you share to this site.

Fair Use of YouTube Sources

Special Notes: The above situations are only workable in the United States. In some other countries, they may call "fair use" as "fair dealing" that can work differently outside the United States.

All in all, you need to keep one thing in mind before you download YouTube videos: the downloaded YouTube videos are just for personal use, not for commercial use.

Still, there are many online video downloading sites claiming that they can legally download YouTube videos while they are warned by YouTube for doing so. Moreover, when you are downloading via some popular sites, you can meet various problems or limits. For example, Savefrom failed to download YouTube videos, Convert2mp3 M4A won’t play, or Downvids won’t download 1080P YouTube and other similar matters.

Download YouTube with the Safe and Legal Way:

Since many online YouTube downloading sites are "yellow-carded" for the use of YouTube API resources and you can suffer different downloading problems on these sites. You can seek another legal and safe method to get YouTube video download for personal viewing. Free HD Video Converter Factory can be your best choice for YouTube downloading.

Free download this YouTube download legal helper first and open it.

Legally Download YouTube Videos within 3 Steps

The Downloading Steps

Step 1: Go to "Downloader", then click "+New Download". Copy and paste a YouTube video’s link to the "Paste URL" part in the Download Video section.

Step 2: Click "Analyze". When the analysis is done, choose one wanted format and resolution from the drop-down list. Then hit "OK".

Step 3: Set a save folder for the video you will download then press the "Download All" button.

Download YouTube Videos Legally with a Three-step Process

WARNING: Please DO NOT take this software to download YouTube copy-righted videos for commercial use!

This is the whole YouTube video downloading process. You are able to take this software to download 1080P videos, download 4K videos, and even download 8K videos. Besides, this program is capable of downloading online videos from 1000+ sites, such as download video from Facebook, CNN, Tubi, BBC iPlayer and so forth. If you want to convert the downloaded videos to other formats or devices, it’s quite convenient to deal with conversions like YouTube to iPhone, YouTube to Samsung, YouTube to FLAC and more via this free helper. Also, you don’t need to worry about issues like "Is YouTube converter legal, or is YouTube to mp3 converter legal?" If you are fair using the downloaded YouTube videos, you are able to convert them to other formats for personal use.

If you have more questions on YouTube download, you can join us in the discussion below.

Now, please download the Free HD Video Converter Factory to complete your jobs.

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