A short while ago, we received this urgent email from our friend Mickeyprecious an anonymous tipster, about whom we have no other knowledge:

Hey Idolator – I would be loving it if you guys posted a guide on how to easily download videos from youtube and convert them to Ipod-friendly .mpg files – using only free software. Can such a thing be done? That way, I can start clearing stuff out before the lawsuits come!

But of course! All you need is TubeSock, which we’ve used to preserve many of our favorite independent-music videos. It converts YouTube files into H.264, MP4, or MP3 files, and you can put them on your iPod or PSP. The program costs $15 to register, but that’s a small price to pay for being able to preserve so many priceless pop-culture artifacts.

TubeSock [Official Site]