YouTube rejects McCain request for DMCA takedown notice delays

Video-sharing site YouTube recently rejected the McCain campaign’s request to delay a DMCA takedown request of their videos. YouTube says they can't give special treatment for political campaigns.

The McCain campaign posted videos with brief snippets of news broadcasts embedded in their political messages, but did so without the explicit permission of major media companies. Most videos received takedown notices immediately upon being posted on YouTube. Here's how it works: When YouTube receives a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice from a company, YouTube immediately removes the uploaded video for 10 days until it fully analyzes whether the video is legal or not. The McCain campaign feels that 10 days of being offline is too much time because there only a few weeks left until the presidential election takes place in the U.S. However, YouTube is firm in its policies and told the McCain campaign it cannot give them and others special treatment. YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine sent the following letter to McCain campaign:

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, and to treat all of our users fairly, regardless of whether they are an individual, a large corporation or a candidate for public office.

The real problem here is individuals and entities that abuse the DMCA takedown process. You and our other content uploaders can play a critical role in helping us to address this difficult problem...You can file counter-notifications. You can seek retractions of abusive takedown notices. You can hold abusive claimants publicly accountable for their actions by publicizing their actions...

We look forward to working with Senator (or President) McCain on ways to combat abuse of the DMCA takedown process on YouTube, including by way of example, strengthening the fair use doctrine...

The McCain campaign posted a YouTube video after Barack Obama mentioned “lipstick on a pig.” In the video, they used a brief video clip featuring CBS News anchor Katie Couric to make their point that Obama’s message was sexist. However, the McCain campaign used the CBS clip without getting explicit permission from the network. Immediately after they posted the video ad on YouTube, it was taken down. The video link shows the following message: "The video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CBS Interactive." The McCain campaign also has other DMCA problems: They used many popular songs including (Jackson Brown’s song Running On Empty, Myer’s Wayne’s World character, Frank Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Of You, Rocky’s theme song, Foo Fighter's My Hero, Ad featuring Major Garrett's Voice from Fox News and Heart's Barracuda, without getting permission from the artists or the record labels. In a twist of irony, McCain's own technology policy indicates he will protect creative industries from piracy.