the headline of the post is unfortunately misleading

with great respect for Matt, copyright is not at fault, and the headline only contributes to a further needless misapprehension about what copyright does and does not protect

in this case it appears YouTube suspended material which was not a violation of copyright - material which falls under the Fair Use exception

this is more likely an example of heavy handed corporate intimidation

large corporations have commonly used threat of lawsuit to secure their objectives, whether a case would actually stand up legally or not

SLAPP suits - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - were often used by corporations against environmentalists who protested land development, for example

and states have created anti-SLAPP legislation

but YouTube doesn't really have an obligation to showcase anyone's video either - just like restaurants have "a right to refuse service"

blogs which feature video can't afford to rely on 3rd party hosts which are either unknowing of the law or unwilling to fight for their users

the good news is that software exists so bloggers can control their own video content

Copyright is not the exclusive preserve of corporations. Copyright protects INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS.

And it is not just a little ironic that the voices of loudest outrage over sweatshop labor practices often are the loudest in wanting to deprive individual authors of the benefits that accrue to their creativity.

This is not to gainsay that corporations are ebregious in their misbehavior - indeed they have commonly abused copyright holders.

But Copyright is not the problem, the problem is with those who abuse.

The Constitution of the United States was crafted expressly bestowing a rather noteworthy compensation for an explcltly identified and exclusively limited  form of labors.

Authors and inventors often do not enjoy much compensation for their work in their lifetimes. So they do not have the ability to pass on the value of an estimable estate as do persons who amass wealth in other professions.

Yet after their deaths, their work does on occasion become valuable, and though they may not themselves enjoy direct benefit - being dead and all - at  least they can know that their heirs might have a chance at some reward from their labor - the same as heirs enjoy wealth passed along in estates wherein the wealth was derived by some more conventional means while the wealth creator was still alive.

In many respects, Copyright is just a typical labor issue. Except not only do employers screw the laborers, so do the customers.

By all means, corporate malefactors deserve criticism, and corrective measures should be devised to mitigate their abusive behaviors.

There was once a time when Playboy Magazine tried to gain copyright ownership after the fact of commissioning an illustration, by claiming that artists' signatures on their deposited paychecks constituted an agreement to transfer ownsership - an agreement the text of which was only provided to the artist upon receipt of the paycheck.

The sad fact is that most critics conveniently conflate Copyright with Corporate Greed, and their arguments are false and disingenuous accordingly, quite precisely the same way that Bush lies about Iraq by conflating it with 9/11.

My point here is not at all to impugn Matt or others who have commented (I suspect Matt is more sensitive to the issue than most) but to try and draw attention to the huge misunderstanding that  exists about Copyright, and about who benefits from it and why.

Tom Harkin once voted for a flag-protection bill

I swear I'll never vote for Feinstein again, because of some of the votes she has cast - but if the contest was ever close between her and the GOP opponent, I'd sure have to weigh the ramifications

nobody has been more outspoken against Bush than Byrd

he and Paul Wellstone were virtually alone in the Senate, loudly and vigorously  opposing the rush to war

your posts are usually much more well considered than this one

by all means, every Dem who voted for the bankruptcy garbage should be criticized - and any wannabe presidential conntenders (like Biden) should be made painfully aware that such votes are candidacy killers in the primary season

but if Joe Biden was the last Dem standing and became the candidate, it would be a no-brainer to vote for him against whichever GOP candidate and Nader

the way to deal with Byrd is to point to the MoveOn money and forcefully make the point that Dem candidates no longer need to pander to corporate feudal lords in order to secure campaign funds

several fraud related posts at
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

kos diarist notes fewer votes in CA 2004 than in 2000:

Nov, 2004:  10,315,604
Nov, 2000:  11,141,740

http://vote2004.ss.ca.gov/

another kos diarist has Pennsylvania questions
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/6/95156/8492

another kos diarist on vote machine problems
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/6/42150/3795

scroll down, on right

copyright protects the rights of INDIVIDUAL citizens

but copyright is too commonly confused with corporate abuse - for example, like the record companies seeking protection for their control of financial territory by instituting restrictive legislation

yet the very people - allegedly liberal - who complain so loudly about sweat shop abuses of labor are the same ones who so cavalierly engage in blatant piracy - and deprive INDIVIDUAL artists and musicians and authors of compensation for THEIR labors - in other words, the music pirates treat musicians the exact same way that Nike treats its sweat shop laborers

the arguments advanced against copyright protection - alleging "community value" as a superior public interest - are insulting, demeaning and ultimately a disincentive to creative endeavor

the Graphic Artists Guild is an organization which has for decades worked aggressively to protect artists - providing help with a range of issues from health care to better business practices

but its greatest successes have been in the area of protecting copyright - once upon a time the allegedly liberal Playboy magazine, for example, used to hold payment in ransom to gain copyright, by declaring that an artist's signature on a deposited check constituted an agreement to Work For Hire - a legal term of art by which the magazine then claimed copyright ownership of the creative work produced - and the Guild was able to rectify the legal situation so that Work For Hire agreements now must be made in writing in advance of the production of the creative work

much of the Guild's success to protect the interests of individual artists have, in fact, been due to the efforts of conservative Republicans - notably Senator Thad Cochran, back in the 1980s

it has always been enormously frustrating to me (foremost among my heroes are Paul Wellstone, Barbara Jordan and Thurgood Marshall) that Democrats - at national, state  and local levels - have commonly been so blind and obstructionist to serving the interests of a core constituency - labor

the plain and simple fact is that copyright is an issue which is not well understood - it wil require an enormous educational effort, and it would be stupidly shortsighted to limit the target audience of the education process to only one side of the political divide

indeed, if there is a genuine public service value, it would be in closing the huge gaps which exists in our polity, and finding areas of agreement - and especially if closing such gaps can better serve the purpose of protecting copyright for individual authors, then bipartisanship should be the operative guide for any organized effort which pursues that goal

I found one Illinois school board requirement of residence for a full year before the office holder's election

there's no US constitutional requirement beyond residence at the time of election, I believe, but I'm wondering if the state has any further requirement

http://seinfeld-fan.net/quotes.php

Directed by
John Frankenheimer

Writing credits
Richard Condon (novel)
George Axelrod (screenplay)

Frank Sinatra    ....     Capt./Maj. Bennett Marco
Laurence Harvey    ....     SSgt. Raymond Shaw
Janet Leigh    ....     Eugenie Rose Chaney
Angela Lansbury    ....     Mrs. Iselin

Have you (or has anyone) done any analysis of electoral college poll data, with respect to coattail effects on downballot candidates, and made predictions for congressional races accordingly?

In other words, on a state district-by-district basis, is there any data which suggests a predictive relationship between a given state's electoral college count (predicted by a given state's poll data stream) and the ideological shape of its simultaneously elected congressional delegation?

(I hope that's a coherent question)

Kerry coattails and depressed GOP turnout, as the result  of diminished enthusiasm for Bush, are intangibles that could represent a rather significant factor in the equation

I'm in no position to make any predictions, but I just have a strong feeling the whole redistricting thing won't exactly work out the way the GOP had hoped