If you're looking for Rand Paul's presidential announcement on YouTube, bad news. As of writing, the video has been blocked by the video streaming site, thanks to a copyright claim from Warner Music Group, as Vox's Andrew Prokop spotted. 
 
 Why? Did Rand Paul quote liberally from Waka Flocka Flame in his announcement? Did he hum Ween's "Freedom of '76" while praising the virtues of freedom? 
 
 No, the answer is almost certainly something else. Blame robots. 
 
 YouTube has a system called "Content ID," which allows the owners of copyright on material to automatically censor unlicensed use of said material. As described here, YouTube automatically matches videos against a big database of copyrighted material, including music, when the video is submitted. Then, copyright owners can, if they wish, block a video from being viewed. 
 
 During his announcement on Tuesday, Rand Paul entered and left to the song, "Shuttin' Detroit Down," as Business Insider notes. The song is a twangy lament about the state of the economy that dates back a few years; the copyright stamp on the YouTube video reads "(c) 2009 WMG." WMG, of course, is Warner Music Group. 
 
 We've reached out to both WMG and YouTube for comment, and will update this article when we hear back. But it's hard not to see some humor in the situation. Rand Paul's spirited cry against government intervention has been blocked from view because YouTube lets huge music companies preemptively apply copyright law. 
 
 Looks like Paul just got another plank in his campaign platform. 
 
 Update: A YouTube spokesperson responded without shedding much additional light: "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." We have not yet heard back from WMG. ||||| MICHAEL B. THOMAS via Getty Images 
 
 WASHINGTON -- Folk legend Kris Kristofferson unwittingly helped Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) launch his presidential campaign. 
 
 On Tuesday, Paul kicked off his announcement rally with a music video for John Rich's anti-Wall Street anthem "Shuttin' Detroit Down." The video that aired at the rally cuts between Rich's original music video, which shows Kristofferson's character getting laid off from a Detroit auto factory, and clips of Paul proposing lower taxes for areas where unemployment is 50 percent greater than the national average. 
 
 This came as a surprise to Kristofferson. According to the musician's publicist, Kristofferson was not aware that he would appear at Tuesday's rally. 
 
 "He was not contacted before the video was used and does not support Rand Paul," Tamara Saviano told The Huffington Post. "Kris is a Democrat." 
 
 Paul was not legally required to seek permission from Kristofferson. The music video is owned by Rich, who supported John McCain in 2008. Paul's campaign did get permission to use the video, according to Doug Stafford, political adviser for the campaign. 
 
 Though he wasn't contacted about the video, Kristofferson's publicist said the artist probably isn't concerned about his likeness being used in Paul's campaign in the future. 
 
 "I'm sure [Kristofferson] doesn't care. It's John Rich's video, not Kris's," Saviano said. "Anyone who knows anything about Kris knows his politics are liberal." 
 
 Republican presidential candidates often run into trouble with popular left-leaning artists over campaign music. In 2012, indie rock band Silversun Pickups filed a cease-and-desist order to stop Mitt Romney from playing their songs at campaign events. Four years earlier, Jackson Browne sued John McCain for a similar offense over his song "Running On Empty." The suit was settled. 
 
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 Spencer Platt via Getty Images ||||| Copyright law is a bitch. Just ask Rand Paul’s newly launched presidential campaign whose video “Stand With Rand: Kentucky” just got pulled from YouTube on copyright grounds. YouTube’s Content ID system flagged a song in the video by country singer John Rich. “Sorry about that,” says the YouTube page now. 
 
 It’s hard to figure out who to blame here. If you’re a fan of Rand Paul and freedom, you might blame the Warner Music Group, who owns the copyright to Rich’s song “Shuttin’ Detroit Down.” You might also blame the vaguely Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which has become famous for overreach. You could even blame YouTube for its sometimes fault Content ID system. Maybe it was all a big mistake! 
 
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 Or you could just take the route of Occam’s Razor and blame Rand Paul’s newly launched presidential campaign. The simplest explanation is that they didn’t secure the rights through the appropriate avenues and got busted by Google’s robots. Either way, the music video for “Shuttin’ Down Detroit”—starring Mickey Rourke and Kris Kristopherson—is better than any campaign video ever could be. 
 
 Contact the author at adam@gizmodo.com. 
 
 Public PGP key 
 
 PGP fingerprint: 91CF B387 7B38 148C DDD6 38D2 6CBC 1E46 1DBF 22 ||||| Nothing sucks the wind out of the presidential campaign announcement sails like a little copyright law dispute. As noted by Vox's Andrew Prokop and detailed by The Washington Post, Rand Paul's official announcement video was suspended thanks to YouTube's "Content ID" system. It 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. 
 
 WMG could have trolled Paul by tracking viewership statistics instead 
 
 The rights-protected content in question here is a song called "Shuttin' Detroit Down," a country tune by John Rich about the effects of the financial crisis of 2007-8 on the Motor City. (The song has an incredibly dramatic video of its own starring Mickey Rourke and Kris Kristofferson. Seriously.) Warner Music Group holds the rights to the song, and somehow the nuclear option was deployed: Paul's entire video was blocked from YouTube. It's not clear when or if the video might return, but his staff will presumably have to petition both YouTube and WMG to allow that to happen, or find a way to change how the song was used. Until then the announcement video, like the fictitious plant in Rourke and Kristofferson's Detroit, remains shut down.
– The official video of Rand Paul's campaign launch has been blocked by YouTube, but not for political reasons: The rally's use of country singer John Rich's "Shuttin’ Detroit Down" was pulled on copyright grounds after apparently being flagged by YouTube's Content ID system, reports Gizmodo. The system automatically checks videos for copyrighted content, and Paul's campaign may now have to contact both YouTube and Warner Music Group, which holds the rights to the anti-Wall Street anthem, to have the video reinstated, the Verge reports. "It's hard not to see some humor in the situation," writes Philip Bump at the Washington Post. "Rand Paul's spirited cry against government intervention has been blocked from view because YouTube lets huge music companies preemptively apply copyright law." A remixed version of the original video, which stars Kris Kristofferson as a laid-off autoworker, was shown at the rally, and the Paul campaign says it had Rich's permission, reports the Huffington Post. It would have been a different story if Kristofferson owned the video rights instead of Rich. "He was not contacted before the video was used and does not support Rand Paul," a rep tells the Post. "Kris is a Democrat." (In 2012, Twisted Sister wouldn't take Paul Ryan using "We're Not Gonna Take It.")