October 15th, 2008
YouTube: No special DMCA policies for candidates
Monday, John McCain’s campaign asked YouTube to undertake full legal reviews of DMCA takedown notices regarding videos from political campaigns.
Today, YouTube said, definitely not. Declan reports that YouTube general counsel Zahavah Levine sent a no-thanks response to McCain GC Trevor Potter:
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…
Nice jab. Since McCain’s technology speaks solely about cracking down on piracy without a whiff of support for the economic advantages of a robust fair use doctrine.
hile the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off. ….
Intellectual property protection is increasingly an issue for U.S. innovators operating in the global economy. John McCain will seek international agreements and enforcement efforts that ensure fair rewards to intellectual property.
Meanwhile McCain has been on the wrong end of quite a few claims that it is using music without artists’ permission.
