All videos are equal, but political videos are more equal than others - at least that’s what presidential candidate John McCain and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s letter sent to YouTube suggests. The two complained to Google’s trio, CEO Chad Hurley, General Counsel Zahavah Levine, and Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry about the unfair treatment of campaign-related videos.

The letter complains about the DMCA takedown notice, which on numerous occasions caused “non-infringing campaign videos” to be removed, “thus silencing the political speech.”

While YouTube complied, as required, with the takedown notices, McCain believes political videos are above that, and YouTube should not deprive the public from viewing the most popular political videos of the day.

The videos removed contained in fact footage from news broadcasts, which the letter said are an example of fair use, as they are non-commercial and transformative; factual, not fictional; extremely brief; and with no conceivable effect on the market for the allegedly infringed works.

While the DMCA policy does not allow a video to be reposted at least 10 days after a counter-notice is received, “10 days can be a lifetime in a political campaign, and there is no justification for depriving the American people of access to important and timely campaign videos during that period.”

There is a solution however, the letter also suggests! The political candidates should have their own accounts, and YouTube should resume to a legal review of the takedown notices for videos posted from those accounts.

The questions are: why would YouTube treat these videos any differently from other videos? And did McCain forget to read YouTube’s term? - “YouTube reserves the right to remove Content and User Submissions without prior notice.”