[wordup] McCain says YouTube acted too quickly to comply with DMCA by removing his campaign videos

[Adam Shand]

This is hilarious, McCain was one of the champions of the DMCA.  Now  
when it's hurting him he's asking for special treatmeat.

Ha ha, suck it.  You helped pass the stupid law, now suffer! :-)

Adam.

Source: http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9117240

McCain protests YouTube's removal of his campaign videos

GOP candidate says YouTube acted too quickly to comply with copyright  
notices that are 'without merit'
Heather Havenstein
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October 15, 2008 (Computerworld) Republican presidential candidate  
John McCain is accusing YouTube LLC of acting too quickly to comply  
with copyright infringement notices by yanking his campaign videos.

McCain's campaign sent a letter Monday to YouTube parent company  
Google Inc., protesting YouTube's removal of unnamed videos from the  
site after receiving take-down notices claiming copyright infringement  
under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The McCain camp  
goes on to suggest that YouTube set up a special process for reviewing  
the legal merit of take-down requests for YouTube accounts associated  
with candidates or their campaigns.

The letter asserts that numerous times during the campaign, YouTube  
removed videos that do not violate the DMCA, but instead are examples  
of fair use of material because the videos included less than 10  
seconds of footage from news broadcasts. The use of material from news  
broadcasts is protected as fair use under the DMCA, McCain's letter  
claims, because the videos are noncommercial uses of the material, the  
material is factual and brief, and the videos don't affect the market  
for the allegedly infringed material.

"Overreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of  
noninfringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political  
speech," according to the letter.

Despite the "complete lack of merit in these copyright claims,"  
YouTube has removed McCain's campaign videos immediately upon receipt  
of the take-down notices, the letter goes on to note.

"It is unfortunate because it deprives the public of the ability to  
freely and easily view and discuss the most popular political videos  
of the day," according to the letter. "Nothing in the DMCA requires a  
host like YouTube to comply automatically with the take-down notices,  
while blinding itself from their legal merit."

The McCain campaign went on to propose that YouTube commit to a full  
legal review of all take-down notices on videos posted from accounts  
controlled by political campaigns and candidates.

"Surely, the protection of core political speech and the protection of  
the central role of YouTube has come to play in the country's  
political discourse is worth the small amount of additional legal work  
our proposal would require."

In a letter sent yesterday to the McCain campaign, YouTube said that  
performing a substantial legal review of every DMCA take-down notice  
that it receives is not a "viable solution."

It is not possible because of the scale of YouTube's operations, the  
letter said. "Any such review would have to include a determination of  
whether a particular use is a 'fair use' under the law, which is a  
complex and fact-specific test that requires the subjective balancing  
of four factors," the letter said. "No number of lawyers could  
determine with a reasonable level of certainty whether all the videos  
for which we receive disputed take-down notices qualify as fair use."

In addition, YouTube does not have the required information about the  
content in user-uploaded videos, such as the source of the content and  
ownership rights, to make the determination as to whether a take-down  
notice includes a valid claim of infringement, YouTube said.

"Moreover, while we agree with you that the U.S. presidential election- 
related content is invaluable and worthy of the highest level of  
protection, there is a lot of other content on our global site that  
our users around the world find to be equally important, including by  
way of example only political campaigns from around the globe at all  
levels of government, human rights movements and other important  
voices. We try to be careful not to favor one category of content on  
our site over others."

Mike Masnick, president and CEO of IT research firm Techdirt, noted  
that it is rare to see politicians delvinginto the fair use issue.
"This is impressive and somewhat unexpected," he noted in a blog post.  
"It's certainly not an issue you'd expect to see raised by a  
presidential candidate (of either party). I'm sure the McCain campaign  
recognizes that YouTube is completely within its legal rights to  
automatically pull down the content, but in sending this letter the  
campaign is suggesting that, specific to videos put up by either  
political campaign (the letter cc's the Obama campaign), that YouTube  
take into account fair use."

He further noted that the real issue has nothing to do with Google or  
YouTube, but in the way the DMCA itself is structured.

"Since it provides clear safe harbor for a recipient of a take-down  
notice if they take down the content, it's a reasonable business  
decision to simply take down the content and then follow the proper  
procedures for letting the uploader file a response notice," Masnick  
wrote. "While it certainly would be nice for YouTube to take into  
account fair use before deciding whether or not to pull down the  
content, the real problem is with the law itself, and the incentives  
it puts in place for any recipient of such a letter."

He suggested that McCain or Democratic candidate Barack Obama push to  
have the legislation changed so that DMCA explicitly notes that  
recipients of take-down notices can keep their protection under fair  
use if they refuse to take down content because they believe the  
content in question is a fair use of the material.

The DMCA has taken center stage in the $1 billion copyright  
infringement lawsuit filed against Google byViacom last year alleging  
that YouTube violates Viacom's copyrights by showing unauthorized  
video clips.

President Bush signed into law yesterday a bill aimed at bolstering  
protection of intellectual property like software, films and music by  
raising penalties for infringement and creating a national "IP czar."