YouTube has responded to McCain/Palin's call for more process before taking political video's down.

Chris Soghoian of Berkman has a nice post about McCain/Palin's call on YouTube to review takedowns from campaigns before taking them down. He criticizes it as "special rules."

True enough, it is a special rule. But isn't it appropriate? For here's the new game for politics in the YouTube age: complain enough to get an account shut down (according to YouTube testimony, 3 complaints gets an account shut down (pg 17 near the bottom), and ideally, do it at the critical time just before an election.

Of course, no one should be subject to this arbitrary game. But especially a campaign. Let's start here and begin to build out from a clear example of bad incentives.

Jesse Dylan (director of the extraordinary "Yes We Can" video) has made a film about Creative Commons. It is released today, the first day of our annual campaign.

The McCain/Palin campaign has written a fantastic letter to YouTube demanding that they start getting real about the response they're giving to notice and take-down demands of material that "are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine." Here is the letter. Bravo to the campaign.

Sorry to disappoint, but my new book, Remix, is not "A Defense of Piracy," whatever the Wall Street Journal's headline writers may think.