Earlier today, a recommended diary applauded CBS and YouTube for taking down a video by the McCain campaign that (unethically, slanderously, and shamelessly) called Obama a sexist for his "lipstick on a pig" comment.
The ad was basically a lie. It was not, however, copyright infringement. It used a small piece of video from a newscast to make a point, and fell squarely inside the accepted bounds of fair use.
I'll make two appeals here: one pragmatic and one philosophical.
Pragmatically, we do not want CBS to be able to tell YouTube to shut down videos containing small snippets of their content via DMCA takedown notices. This would prevent us from using comments by McCain, Palin, or his surrogates on YouTube videos if the comments were made on network TV (i.e. all of them).
Philosophically, liberals should be against censorship of any content via DMCA that is not straight-up copyright infringement (i.e. large chunks of movies), and some would argue that DMCA takedown notices themselves are arbitrary and very hard to defend against.
We do not want Republicans using DMCA takedown notices as a bludgeon to silence criticism, so we should not be in favor of this takedown. To be clear, I am not saying that this video is good, ethical, or anything like that. I'm saying that it is free speech, and that takedown notices should not be used to take it down.