Google video site YouTube today announced a number of new options for content creators and consumers who want to “take their videos offline.” The site has entered into working arrangements with several “partners” to allow sharing their videos “universally” and away from an Internet connection.

Citing an interest among some of their content creators to share their work “far and wide” with attribution, YouTube is offering content creators the option of Creative Commons licenses to permit people to reuse downloaded content (under certain conditions determined by the license-holder).

YouTube is also exploring test options to enable video owners the abilit to allow downloading of their videos via YouTube — either for free, or for a fee paid through Google Checkout. “Partner” video owners can determine their own prices and decide which license they want to attach to the downloaded video files.

The site is currently exploring free downloads of lectures from Stanford, Duke, and UC Berkeley, among others. A handful of other YouTube “partners,” including khanacademy, householdhacker and pogobat, are also participating in this test with download-for-fee videos.

The video watch pages of the participating partners link to the download option below the left-hand corner of the video. To help consumers keep track of the videos they have previously purchased, YouTube has created a new “My Purchases” tab under “My Videos.”

Video creators interested in joining this distribution initiative can find more information here, and general information and discussion about “taking YouTube offline” is over here.