Free Talk Live

As has been widely reported, an official Romney campaign ad that showed President Obama singing a line from the Al Green song "Let's Stay Together" has been hit with a takedown from BMG Rights Management — the group that controls the publishing rights of the original song — and pulled from YouTube. The takedown is an obvious abuse of the DMCA process: the ad was a clear fair use and therefore noninfringing. But the unfortunate real story here is that this kind of takedown abuse is all too common, and we're likely to see it again this campaign season. Four years ago, as the last presidential campaign season started heating up...