YouTube videos may soon become more accessible, thanks to a new feature Google began experimenting with late last week. Launching in what appears to be a limited rollout, some YouTube videos can now be downloaded via a simple link at YouTube's site, opening the doors for more sharing of videos posted to the massive community.

The first videos to receive the new feature appear to be from President-elect Barack Obama's ChangeDotGov Channel. A small "Click to download" link appears beneath a video's toolbar on the YouTube site, and videos download in the same high-quality MPEG4, H.264 format that can be seen by viewing YouTube through portals on the iPhone and Apple TV. These links don't appear on a user's channel page, however; you have to visit a video directly, such as Obama's latest Weekly Address on January 17, 2009.

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law School processor and champion of the Creative Commons copyright system for mere mortals, noticed the feature this weekend, saying he was told that it will be offered "more generally" in due time. We checked our YouTube account and uploaded a video, but we cannot yet find the option to allow videos to be downloaded by the general public. It is worth nothing that competing services such as Vimeo have offered this option for some time, and it was a long-standing feature of Google's own Google Video property—which will soon close its doors to uploads.

The option to easily download YouTube content is no small matter. More than just a site for goofing around on camera, YouTube has become an effective platform for public communication and furthering the careers of creatives and popularity-haulics alike. Some will undoubtedly consider allowing the public to download their videos because it furthers a purpose or message through yet another medium. Others who don't agree and don't enable the feature may feel a new pressure from users who quickly come to expect having that option available. Rippers and other tools for grabbing videos from sites like YouTube have existed for years, but it's the cultural implications of this feature that may have repercussions.

That said, it appears as though YouTube has yet to roll this feature out to other accounts, as we were unable to find any downloadable videos besides those from Obama's channel. It's likely the feature will expand across Youtube, and that it almost surely will be disabled by default to prevent the downloading of copyrighted freebies.