Users of YouTube's mobile apps will get an offline viewing mode next month, courtesy of a DRM that expires the "downloaded" video in 48 hours.
Current YouTube policies prohibit the downloading of their videos, despite the wide availability of third-party tools that allows for doing just that.
But with YouTube offering their own official download function, it represents a slight change in tactics for the Google owned website. Offline viewing will allow queued videos to be pre-downloaded and viewed even in the absence of an Internet connections, such as during the morning commute or on a long haul flight.
Uploaders will be able to opt out of the system if they wish to, although they may have very little reason for wanting to do so. In-stream ads will be downloaded with the video content, so revenue is not affected. And even the video views stats will be unaffected, as they are uploaded the next time the app connects to the Internet.
An exact launch date for the offline viewing function is yet to be announced, but sources indicate a November launch if highly likely.
Just last month, Amazon announced a feature in their new Kindle Fire tablets that allows offline viewing of videos that are part of their subscription based streaming service.
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