By now many of you have seen that the videos posted earlier this week of Stephen Colbert roasting President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner have been taken down. We know these videos were extremely popular and of immense social and political importance to many of you. The videos were not removed due to the content or any political bias. They were removed at the request of CSPAN, who claims to be the copyright owner. A number of you have inquired about whether or not the speech was considered 'public domain' and therefore exempt from copyright protection. Unfortunately, CSPAN has asserted that the video footage uploaded was broadcasted and owned by them.
When we become aware that there are videos on the site that were uploaded without the copyright owners permission we remove them and in most cases, (as was the case with the CSPAN videos) we become aware because the copyright owner contacts us and requests that the video be taken down. Copyright laws can be a tricky and a somewhat complicated matter but we want our community to be one where everyone's creative rights are respected.
Best,
MaryroseThe YouTube Team