14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, YouTube announced that it would soon (November) enable users to download videos for offline viewing on their mobile devices. Users would pick the videos they want to watch and then play them even if they don't have an internet connection.
However, the feature is not universal. While the download feature will be enabled by default for all videos, publishers can opt out. Offline videos would still carry ads, which would be downloaded as well, so partners will still make money from the offline viewing, though perhaps not as much.
This left one big unanswered question, about music videos, which are undoubtedly the most popular type of videos on the site.
Well, we now have an answer to that question and, though unsurprising, it's still disappointing. Vevo, which represents all the major music labels, has said that its videos won't be available for offline play. What this means is that the most popular music on YouTube won't play offline.
Given that music videos are already the most popular thing on the site and that it's precisely music that people would want to download and watch over and over again, having them unavailable makes the feature significantly less useful.
“We're not going to allow viewing of our music videos or other programming in offline mode,” Vevo told Variety and that's all that the company would say on the matter.
While partners were given the chance to opt out and, presumably, every video uploader will get to choose whether to make those videos available offline or not, in Vevo's case it may not even have gotten to that. YouTube has a special deal with Vevo and the music labels and the licensing may simply forbid it from offering video downloads.
However, the word is that YouTube does have the right to make music videos from Vevo available offline, but only via a subscription service, which the site hasn't launched yet.