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Fair Use on the Campaign Trail

by Pamela Parker

A fascinating report on Wired.com highlights copyright fair use principals again. Apparently, the McCain presidential campaign has been attempting to use YouTube as part of its campaign strategy, but they have repeatedly seen their videos pulled by YouTube after DMCA takedown notices were sent to YouTube from various media companies. The McCain videos have been pulled for using clips from debates and speeches, and for using some pop songs without specific rights grants.

According to Wired, McCain’s legal staff has written to Google (which owns YouTube) complaining that the copyrighted material used in the pulled videos fell under the fair use doctrine, and should not have been pulled without a review by Google. Wired notes that Congress generally has been unwilling to listen to very much on the subject of fair use.

It’s an interesting shift in the perception of YouTube. Wonder what McCain will do on this subject when he returns to politics - either in the Senate or the White House, he’d be in a position to champion greater deference to fair use principals.


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