Rand Paul's presidential announcement was a huge success. Not only were people talking about Paul's presidential potential all of Tuesday, but he's only the second person to become a notable official president candidate. But within 24 hours of that announcement, the Paul campaign had its first big technical error.
Rand Paul's official announcement video was suspended Tuesday afternoon after YouTube's "Content ID" system noticed certain copyrighted pieces of media in his video. But how exactly does this system work?
"(YouTube's Content ID filter) automatically checks videos that are uploaded to the service against a backlog of copyrighted content, and alerts the rights holders when it finds an infringement. When that copyrighted material is used without permission, the companies or individuals who hold the rights can choose what happens to the offending video from a number of options, like selling ads against it, muting the audio, or - perhaps the most dastardly considering Paul's stance on the NSA - gaining access to its viewership statistics," The Verge reported.
Apparently, the fact that Paul walked in and out to "Shutting Detroit Down" by John Rich triggered the Content ID system, which gave Warner Music Group (which owns the copyright to that song) the ability to pull that content down.
But was it a legitimate pull? The Washington Post reached out to WMG and YouTube about the pulled video. A spokesman from the video-sharing site told WaPo that "YouTube's Content ID technology gives rightsholders control of their content on YouTube. If a user believes their video was claimed in error, they can dispute the Content ID claim." WMG has yet to respond to a request for comment regarding the issue.
