• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 1, 2007

A day after demanding that YouTube remove clips from Sunday's Oscars broadcast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was preparing a second take-down request on Wednesday after more clips began surfacing on the popular video-sharing site.

Variety.com reported Tuesday that YouTube had complied with a request from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to remove Oscars highlights posted to the site. Video segments from the show, including musical numbers by Beyonce and Will Ferrell and Jack Black, have been among the most-viewed clips on YouTube this week.

But on Wednesday, the Will Ferrell clip and plenty of video highlights from Beyonce's Oscars night performance were back up on YouTube. An Academy spokesperson said that the organization had made an initial request to YouTube on Tuesday to remove 75 Oscars clips and related links from the site.

But starting Tuesday night, additional Oscars videos were being uploaded to the site, she said. The Academy's legal team on Wednesday was working on a follow-up request for YouTube to purge at least another 65 clips from the site, according to its spokesperson.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains a "safe harbor" provision that protects Web hosts from liability if they remove copyrighted material when owners complain.

YouTube issued a brief statement on Wednesday, saying: "We have received a DMCA notification from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and have complied with their request. We prohibit users from uploading infringing material, and we cooperate with all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content as soon as we are officially notified."

The Oscar.com site itself, a joint venture by the Academy and ABC.com, offers only a five-minute highlight clip of the 3-hour, 51-minute awards show. The site also features "Thank You Cam" videos from winners, behind-the-scenes footage, and other video material surrounding the broadcast. The Academy has no plans to post additional clips to the Oscar.com site, the group's spokesperson said. An international flavor to this year's Academy Awards broadcast helped to nearly double worldwide traffic to Oscar.com on Sunday, according to comScore Media Metrix. With big-category nominees from countries including Mexico, Japan and Spain, unique visitors surged to 422,000 from 239,000 in 2006. U.S. traffic to Oscar.com, also jumped to 139,000 from 82,000 last year.