Washington (ECN) - The election campaign has left the Republican candidate John McCain another battle very different from occuping the Oval Office. McCain's legal team has sent a letter to Chad Hurley, YouTube chief executive, complaining that YouTube should not have removed campain ads.
According to YouTube, the videos violate DMCA regulations on fair use.
McCain's camp argues that the content of the ads are fully legal and do comply with "fair use". However, YouTube has decided to withdraw the videos before the accusations about the alleged violation of copyright.
The conflict arises because the Republican candidate has manipulated images and video belonging to various media outlets, choosing small fragments of different news about 10 seconds' duration.
According to lawyer John McCain, the use of these reports should be considered a "fair use", a provision in U.S. law that allows an individual to use a creation without asking permission from the author .
"Numerous times during the course of the campaign, our advertisements or web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine," Potter writes in his letter to YouTube. "Despite the complete lack of merit in these copyright claims, YouTube has removed our videos immediately upon receipt of takedown notices...It is unfortunate because it deprives the public of the ability to freely and easily view and discuss the most popular political videos of the day."
One of the most contentious issue in this case is the use of content from the CBS network. This excerpt shows the host Katie Couric denounce several months ago sexism to Hilary Clinton, the candidate who lost the Democratic Party.
