Obama super-PAC pulls ad using Olympic footage

An ad from the super-PAC supporting President Obama has been removed from YouTube after a copyright claim from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the organization has agreed not to air the commercial on television as had been originally planned.

The commercial used footage of Mitt Romney from the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake City Olympics to hit his personal finances and tenure at Bain Capital. The ad also criticized Romney for the Olympics' outsourcing of uniform production to Burma.

Bill Burton, the former White House official who now runs the Priorities USA Super PAC supporting the president, said they agreed to pull the ad after assurances from the Olympic Committee that Mitt Romney's supporters would also not be allowed to use copyrighted footage. The IOC is notoriously protective of Olympic footage, and networks pay a huge premium to air events live or as part of highlight packages.

"Once we were assured that Mitt Romney and his allies would be held to the same standard, we were glad to take the ad down from our Web site,” Priorities spokesman Bill Burton told the Washington Post. “Go Team USA!”

The copyright issue is similar to an incident earlier this month, when the record label of singer Al Green had a Romney campaign Web video that mocked the president's rendition of "Let's Stay Together."

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