McCain Takes on DMCA

The McCain campaign has appealed a decision by Google’s YouTube to remove political ads which it had been reported in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. YouTube has been at the center of a political firestorm regarding copyright standards and responded to the appeal in kind.

Based upon removal requests under the DMCA, YouTube has a policy of instantly removing the content in question, while allowing for a 10 day review or appeal time frame. What is unique about this case is that the material is particularly timely in the context of a rapidly winding down presidential campaign. While the campaign has run a number of ads featuring video clips from news organizations, which have been accepted as television ads, they were rejected on the YouTube platform.

While the McCain campaign might have been seeking to maximize the reach of their advertising, they have implicitly taken a policy position that puts them in a precarious position at the center of a heated debate. The bottom line is that our copyright laws were written for an era when digital distribution was considered “on the horizon” – well, the horizon is here and digital is mainstream, so it’s about time that we took a serious look at a new paradigm for content protection and distribution.