Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Youtube Yanks Romney Ad

Here is the DailyCaller story on the issue. And here is the most interesting paragraph in their article:

Perhaps ironically, BMG and Crown/Random House (which published both of Obama’s books, his campaign plan, and Michelle Obama’s new book) are — despite Obama’s concerns about “outsourcing” — all owned by German conglomerate Bertlesmann AG, which bills itself as “the world’s most international media company.”

If you didn't like the Political Payoffs and Middle Class Layoffs ad, no worries, it has been taken down. Despite its Fair Use usage, BMG has issued a DMCA notice takedown (most likely illegally, I might add). Despite it being Obama singing it, Romney using less than 15 seconds of the song, and BMG’s refusal to sue Obama over public performance of the song, Youtube has taken the ad down.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to research or resources to investigate the intricacies of this take-down notice. But the DMCA requires certain steps to be taken before Youtube, or any other hosting site, is legally required to pull a video or audio clip. The whole thing stinks to high heaven that Youtube summarily yanked it so quickly. Team Romney is on sure legal footing to declare the video of Obama singing (not the original artist) no more than 5 seconds of a song to be FAIR USE and require Youtube to relist the video.

Let's watch the ad below. When the graphic changes from the youtube yanked image to an actual image from the video, you'll know it is back up.

4 comments:

Machtyn said...

You'll notice the hypocrisy of Obama, again. His book was published by a company own by an international company. He outsourced the printing of his books and plans.

Anonymous said...

So all of the other versions of Obama singing on YouTube are OK to show? Time to get Google to back off and allow the ad to return. Or we could all just label all of the pother version as copy write infringement.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

What song was Obama singing in the video?

Jani is Hot said...

Romney girl in homegrown music video/ad for Mitt2012 now on youtube "America Street" http://youtu.be/PiPYv4NIOEg