SAN BRUNO, Calif. - The McCain presidential campaign has requested YouTube refine their take-down process due to the removal of several of his campaign videos, CNET News.com reported.
A letter was sent Wednesday to YouTube by the McCain campaign carping about videos that were removed, which the McCain camp maintains were well within the "fair use" of the copyrighted materials.
"We fully understand that YouTube may receive too many videos, and too many take-down notices, to be able to conduct full fair-use review of all such notices," McCain's Campaign Counselor Trevor Potter wrote in a passage extracted from the letter by Wired.com. "But we believe it would consume few resources -- and provide enormous benefit -- for YouTube to commit a full legal review of all take-down notices on videos posted from accounts controlled by (at least) political candidates and campaigns."
Google and YouTube said they "Try to be careful not to favor one category of content on our site over others," adding that they prefer a fair user policy, "regardless of whether they are an individual, a large corporation or a candidate for public office." Additionally the search giant and its tube site noted that a counter-claim could be filed to restore the videos, or they could bring suit against the copyright holders themselves.
"The real problem here is individuals and entities that abuse the DMCA takedown process," YouTube's rejection explained. "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..."
