When Real Networks releases its new player on Tuesday, the ability to download flash video becomes much easier for everyone. While this may be a good thing for those who believe everything on the web is for the taking, the problem for media companies is that the advertising content is stripped from the downloaded video. Copyright issues are also at play here. While I don’t see this as a totally negative issue, I do believe that we need to make sure that what we produce is branded properly. People who download our content need to be aware of where that content comes from.

From Beet.tv: Get Ready to Rip/Burn All YouTube Videos on Tuesday!
RealNetworks is set to release its new player on Tuesday. The desktop application allows users to scroll over online video in all major formats and save them to a hard drive. Videos with digital rights management cannot be saved, but a vast majority of Flash files can be. Virtually the entire YouTube library can be downloaded. - more