In October 2008, in the heat of the presidential campaign season, the McCain-Palin campaign sent a letter to YouTube describing difficulties it had been having with DMCA takedowns aimed at its campaign ads posted on YouTube. Apparently, CBS News, Fox News, and the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) had all sent copyright complaints to YouTube over the use of short (less than 10 second) clips of news footage in the ads.

At least one ad by the Obama campaign had also been targeted by a DMCA takedown notice, this one sent by NBC News.

EFF, joined by a variety of other public interest and academic organizations, responded to the McCain-Palin letter by sending our own letters to the news networks involved and YouTube.

In order to preserve the historical record regarding this misuse of the DMCA's takedown procedures, we are posting the four videos here. In our view, the uses of news footage here plainly are protected by the fair use doctrine, and thus do not infringe any copyrights. Accordingly, the news networks should never have sent DMCA takedowns to YouTube over these videos.

McCain-Palin "Lipstick" ad (CBS sent the takedown)

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McCain-Palin "Folks" ad (CBN sent the takedown)

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McCain-Palin "ACORN" ad (Fox sent the takedown)

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Obama-Biden "Bad Day" ad (NBC sent the takedown)

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