Intellectual Property Law

By virtue of its large war chest, Barack Obama's campaign is outgunning John McCain's on every front in the last hours of the 2008 presidential campaign, and nowhere is this more readily apparent on the internet than on YouTube.

Obama's campaign is releasing web videos at a pace that can only be described as frenetic. Some of them are traditional campaign ads, but many of them serve a very specific purpose aimed at persuading voters to take a specific action.

Many of the videos differ from the kind that have been typical of political campaigns. Instead of simply making hit pieces that attack the opponent, many of the web videos provide voters with basic information about what they need to do to vote. The videos are also designed to arm supporters with facts, as misinformation campaigns swirl around them in the form of flyers, robocalls and e-mails.

The latest video as of Monday evening, for example, came from Michelle Obama, who spent one-and-a-half minutes before a rally in Littleton, Colorado, appealing to Colorado YouTube viewers to vote.   

"We need you to go to your polling place, and if you don't know where that is, go to VoteforChange.com," Obama tells her viewers. "Understand, the lines are going to be long. Don't get out of line no matter what. Stay in line. Bring some water, bring a chair, and vote."

While she speaks, text appearing on top of the shot invites viewers to click on a tab, which when clicked takes the viewer to an informational video about the voting process in Colorado.

The campaign has also recorded other similar get-out-the-vote and voter protection videos for supporters in Indiana, Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvannia, and Virginia.

On Monday, for example, the campaign uploaded a video of Chris Rock explaining the rules and the process to first-time voters in Virginia. Rock tells voters what forms of ID they should bring along with them, and urges them to get there early. Another campaign worker then appears and tells the viewers that they can get a ride or more information by calling a campaign hotline (877-582 6226.)

"Basically, it's important to vote because if you don't vote, you can't complain, and we all need to complain or else we get ulcers, and ulcers explode, and toxins enter your bloodstream, and you die," Rock jokes. "It's a horrible death, it really is."

The campaign did upload some videos that fall into the category of regular political advertising, as well as excerpts from Barack Obama and Joe Biden's appearances at the day's events. New videos with footage of campaign events and volunteers' activities around the nation appeared nearly every hour. 

Viewership of the videos varied. Some, such as Bruce Springsteen's performance in Cleveland, predictably received thousands more views than the GOTV videos.

But the point is that these explanatory videos build on the work that Democrats did during the caucusing process to use YouTube to educate citizens. This time around, the Democrats' presidential candidate is obviously reaching out to supporters who may either be voting for the first time, or who haven't voted in a long time. These voters are expected to make up a significant voting bloc for the candidate.

The McCain campaign is sending GOTV e-mails out to supporters with the relevant information regarding their polling places, but it hasn't adopted a similar YouTube strategy. 

Whether this is a deliberate choice or the result of the campaign's limited resources, it leaves a "McCain advertising vacuum" in a medium that has become mainstream in American politics.

The Obama campaign is filling up that vacuum with its avalanche of videos. Searches for terms relating to voting on YouTube for example, call up dozens and dozens of videos released by the campaign.