SPOTLIGHT: McCain gets ads booted off YouTube

John McCain just can't win with fair use. Several recording artists have sent him cease-and-desist notices for using their songs at his rallies, including Jackson Browne (Running on Empty), Heart (Barracuda), and the Foo Fighters (My Hero).

And now YouTube is the latest to hamper McCain's use of others' creative content, as they took down several campaign ads after Fox News (of all people) requested YouTube remove them for misuse of copyrighted material.

McCain's campaign requested the videos remain online until a fair use hearing, not unlike the one in the Veoh case, was held to determine if, in fact, Fox's copyright was unfairly infringed.

YouTube denied the request, saying it stood to lose the safe-harbor copyright infringement protection it enjoys under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act if it kept the videos up on the site. Ironically, John McCain voted for and supported the DMCA, which now is giving him issues. 

For more:
- see the digitaltrends.com blog post here
- see the Huffington Post article on McCain using songs without permission 

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