McCain Camp Cries 'Fair Use' Foul For YouTube
On Monday, the top lawyer for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote to executives at video sharing Web site YouTube complaining about the processing of take-down requests under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "Overarching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech," McCain's general counsel Trevor Potter wrote.
"Numerous times during the course of the campaign, our advertisements or Web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine," he explained to YouTube founder Chad Hurley, general counsel Zahava Levin and William Patry, senior copyright counsel for Internet giant Google, which owns YouTube. The uses at issue have been the inclusion of fewer than 10 seconds of footage from news broadcasts in campaign ads or videos as a basis for commentary, which is protected under copyright law, Potter said.
The McCain camp proposed that if YouTube receives a takedown notice for any video posted from accounts belonging to political candidates and campaigns, the firm should "commit to a careful legal review, including fair use analysis, to determine whether the infringement claim has substantial merit." If YouTube finds that the clip is legal, the site should decline to act upon the notice, Potter recommended.
At least one watchdog -- Public Knowledge -- found the letter ironic since it was sent on the same day that President Bush signed a bill that the group believes was "written by the big media companies" and "adds yet more imbalance to our copyright laws." The DMCA was originally designed by, and for, the big media companies, PK's President Gigi Sohn said. "The concepts of fair use then, as now, are largely ignored or shuffled off to the side when any congressional discussion of copyright law takes place."
This isn’t the first time the McCain camp has been involved in a copyright controversy. During the primaries, CNN, ABC and NBC agreed to release video rights but Fox News Channel threatened legal action against McCain for using a debate clip.
Join the Discussion
The National Journal Group has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.
Comments powered by Disqus