McCain has requested YouTube to make available all the videos which were removed due to copyright complaints. He also stated that YouTube has been acting too quickly complying with copyright infringement notices.
On a letter to Chad Hurley, CEO, YouTube, Trevor Potter, General Council, McCain – Paula campaign stated, “Overreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech”.
The letter further states, “Despite the complete lack of merit in these copyright claims, YouTube has removed our videos immediately upon receipt of takedown notices. This is both unfortunate and unnecessary.”
McCain has also proposed for a full legal review of all the videos that has been taken down from accounts that were created for political campaigns or for candidates.
Google replied back to McCain’s campaign, mentioning that a substantial legal review of all DMCA take-down notices is not a viable solution. The reply further mentions, “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. 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.”
Looks like this argument would go on for many more days. And that’s exactly what McCain hates! This being a crucial time in political campaign, every minute counts!