Oops: Official DNC Livestream on YouTube Blocked for Copyright Infringement

Those visiting President Barack Obama's or the Democratic National Convention's websites last night to catch the speeches on livestream saw the DNC's own embedded YouTube video with a copyright infringement message.

YouTube has since come out saying the violation on the feed DemConvention 2012 was posted in error.

Wired reports the livestream, which can be found as an unlisted video here or embedded on BarackObama.com and DemConvention2012, showed the copyright error after first lady Michelle Obama's speech. The message read:

This video contains content from WMG, SME, Associated Press (AP), UMG, Dow Jones, New York Times Digital, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), Warner Chappell, UMPG Publishing and EMI Music Publishing, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. Sorry about that.

This message was later changed to read "This video is private."

Contacting Erica Sackin with the Obama campaign late Tuesday night, Wired found the team was not aware of the issue and Sackin said, "I'll have to call you back."

A YouTube spokesperson told Wired via email that the error message was incorrect.

"Neither the live stream nor any of the channel’s videos were affected," the spokesperson said.

What happened then? Wired speculates YouTube's "pre-emptive content filters" are to blame. Its system allows for almost immediate blocking of videos claimed to be in violation.

For example, Wired points out one of NASA's officially uploaded videos of the Mars rover Curiosity was incorrectly blocked due to a complaint from a news network.

GigaOm calls the situation "a little dubious."

As of right now, the livestream on the sites is on a countdown. At the time of this posting, the countdown was at less than 10 hours. CNET reported at 11 p.m. Tuesday the countdown began at 15 hours.

Stay tuned: We'll update this story should more information become available.