Dirpy, a Digital Video Recorder for the Internet

Love a certain YouTube song and wish you could have it in MP3 format? It’s never been easier or looked prettier than with Dirpy.

Dirpy Studio, currently in Beta, is an advanced Internet DVR that lets you record and convert your favorite YouTube videos to high quality mp3s. You simply insert a Video URL and choose from options including start and stop time for recording, three different quality formats (highest is 128 kbps) and ID3 tag data editing. Hit “Record” and a matter of seconds the song is ripped from the video and downloaded onto your computer. Very cool.

Dirpy Studio is free and requires no registration. The site even incorporates easy to share Facebook and Twitter links which I love.  And with Sprint and Toms Shoes as advertisers it’s apparent Dirpy isn’t doing too bad financially.

But is it legal?

According to their site, “legality depends on many factors like one’s location and its according laws. Dirpy is simply offered as a service and it’s up to the individual user to determine the legality of their own activities. We are not your lawyers and we cannot give you legal counsel.”

But for users in the United States, and countries with similar laws, “using Dirpy as intended is perfectly legal.”

Dirpy taps into Google and YouTube’s free APIs. Technically, Dirpy is similar to other devices that let you convert and store media locally for personal playback like TiVo or MythTV. So just like DVRs let you record TV programs and other media content, Dirpy “lets you record local versions of freely available online media for your own personal uses.”

Dance on.

[Update] Stop dancing.