Is It Illegal to Convert YouTube to MP3 or Any Other Format?
Nowadays, it seems that every single Hollywood association, movie studio and record label is going out of its way to file lawsuits against everyone 
ranging from an innocent college student downloading his/her favorite music for personal hearing to accusing the 80-year-olds of masterminding the international piracy gangs. With so much crazy legal jargon being thrown around here and there, it is no wonder that the Internet users are becoming increasingly concerned about the legalities behind conversion of YouTube videos from YouTube to MP3 format. Although, we are not lawyers, we did take some lawyers into confidence so as to better understand the legal liabilities which could emerge from converting these videos from YouTube to MP3 format. We were told that all was fine as long as we were respecting the DMCA and copyright laws.
For an average user like you and me, this implies that as long as we are not copying content from the YouTube and then selling it off in the marketplace for a price, we all are doing fine with regards to the legal liabilities. However, keep in mind that you must also check your local rules, regulations and laws regarding the intellectual properties and copyrights, as many countries, states and cities have their own specific procedures to deal with such issues. You would definitely want to double check these aspects especially if you are on the road in an unknown country, where the laws related to YouTube to MP3 conversion might be comparatively lenient or stringent. This becomes even more important in a country that has a history of censoring certain types of websites. For example YouTube is completely banned in China and Thailand and you may have to pay heavy fines or even land up in jail by visiting the YouTube website, leave alone converting the videos from YouTube to MP3 format.
In order to address this question about legality of converting YouTube to MP3, we need to go a little further into the details. As we all must be aware, YouTube is nowadays the most popular website having a huge database of videos on the Internet. YouTube on its own is nothing more than a mere group of streaming video files called the FLV files.
So, what is an FLV file after all?
FLV is the acronym for flash video file, which is basically an invention of Macromedia. This particular video format is employed by all major video streaming websites like Yahoo video, Google video and obviously YouTube. This is the original file format that is utilized to extract the audio version from the video and converting it with the help of a YouTube to MP3 converter.
So is converting from YouTube to MP3 really illegal?
This argument has many aspects to it. A large section of people are of the
opinion that such conversion from YouTube to MP3 is an illegal activity. This is because many FLV delivery websites like YouTube contain specific copyright data. Providing an option to download or convert that media, is tantamount to causing copyright infringement, and hence is perceived as being illegal. As soon as anyone creates a copy of something that has its own copyrights, and then distributes it among different people, she/he indulges in copyright infringement. Now let’s look at the process of converting the videos on YouTube from YouTube to MP3 format. You simply take a file given by the YouTube for your personal viewing and convert it from YouTube to MP3 format only for your personal use. It is not considered illegal as long as you do not distribute the converted file. This can be compared to the scenario when we used to watch television two to three decades ago and would often record our favorite TV programs onto a cassette and then later watch them on a VCR. In those times, we would end up changing the TV programs’ format from a regular cable broadcast format into a VCR tape. Conversion of YouTube to MP3 format is similar kind of activity carried out in the modern era.
How can I easily convert YouTube to MP3 format?
This can be achieved with great ease by making use of a third party application such as ‘Video Download Pro.’ This application will allow you to convert a single file or an entire playlist from the YouTube to MP3 or any other format of choice (MOV, MPEG, MP4, 3GP, AVI or WMV). There are no limitations on the number of YouTube videos you can convert from YouTube to MP3.
