Copyright As Weapon In US Senate Campaign

kfogel writes "Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Nevada, is using a copyright 'cease-and-desist' letter to stop her opponent, incumbent Harry Reid (currently majority leader in the US Senate), from reposting old versions of her campaign website. The old pages are politically sensitive because Angle campaigned from the far right in the primary, but is now toning that down for the general election." As kfogel notes, the letter "also accuses the Reid campaign of intending to impersonate Angle's campaign, which seems doubtful, but who knows?"

Wrong state?

[XxtraLarGe]

I think the summary got it wrong. Aren't they candidates for Senate in Nevada?

Don't think it will matter

[elrous0]

Even the Streisand Effect can't change how anti-incumbent the voters are, or make the Republican Party swing back to moderation. These days, voices of moderation get purged pretty quickly from the Republican Party. And, sadly, saying stuff like "I don't believe in abortion even in cases of incest, rape, or protecting the life of the mother" is more likely to gain you voters rather than lose them. The GOP is about 2 elections away from advocating the abolishing of public education/Social Security and declaring martial law, and the electorate is right there with them. Democrats, meanwhile, are too busy compromising, selling-out, and generally acting incompetent to offer any real resistance. Sad, sad, sad.

Misleading summary

[Anonymous Coward]

By "reposting old versions of her website," what the submitter actually means is "copying all of the code and images from Sharron Angle's old website, registering a new domain (therealsharronangle.com), and re-creating the entire (old) website." There was even an operable section to sign up as a volunteer, thus collecting the personal information of people who might accidentally come to the phishing site instead of the actual Sharron Angle site. This is known as phishing, and is indeed a violation of copyright.

Gee, Slashdot spreading a misleading story in a bid to make an unfavored politician look bad. Unfortunately, this isn't really unusual for Slashdot.

Re:RTF letter and link

[M. Baranczak]

Actually, the site in question is no longer up, (it redirects to another one), so we can't tell whether or not the complaint is legitimate.

Re:Wha?

[Anonymusing]

It is an open book. However, having dealt with a number of design contracts, there may have been a written agreement between the designer and the campaign that nobody else would use that site design, which this would violate to some extent. Nonetheless, there are ways around that: posting screen shots with commentary, for example, or just quoting the text.

I'd also expect Angle to contact The Wayback Machine [waybackmachine.org] if she doesn't want old copies of her site online...

Re: Wrong state? (Yes, my fault, not Slashdot's)

[kfogel]

Yes, should have been Nevada, not Arizona -- and the fault was mine in the original submission, not Slashdot's. Sorry about that! I'm glad they updated the post.

-Karl Fogel

Re:Fair use?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I haven't had time to look at this in detail" - the key part of your comment is this.

The summary makes it sound like they took screenshots and posted them on harry reid's website. What actually happened is that they copied Sharron Angle's old website in its entirety, created a new domain with her name in it (therealsharronangle.com), and hosted a copied version of the website themselves, without indicating on the website that is was a parody. This is known as a copyright violation, and could even be seen as a phishing attempt.

disgusting on both sides

[yyxx]

Sharron Angle's attempts to keep her old campaign pages out of the public record are reprehensible. However, Harry Reid's portrayal of her positions is also reprehensible, misrepresenting the reasons behind her votes (e.g., claiming that she is in effect supporting child molesters).

Re:Misleading summary

[Anonymous Coward]

By "reposting old versions of her website," what the submitter actually means is "copying all of the code and images from Sharron Angle's old website, registering a new domain (therealsharronangle.com), and re-creating the entire (old) website." There was even an operable section to sign up as a volunteer, thus collecting the personal information of people who might accidentally come to the phishing site instead of the actual Sharron Angle site. This is known as phishing, and is indeed a violation of copyright.

That would have made it into the summary if it had been a Democrat this was happening to.

Here comes the infamous ultra-conservative persecution complex. If this was happening to a democrat, Fox News would have been telling us how it's the God-given right of any candidate to do exactly what Reid is doing.

Maybe it didn't make it into the headline because there's no evidence that any data was actually captured?

Re:Boo fuckin' hoo

[jackspenn]

Umm, you need read and understand the facts before you post.

The issue is not that Senator Reid's campaign merely reposted parts of her website. Or that she was running away from positions she has taken in the past.

It was that the Reid campaign created a website to look like hers and used that site to get names, emails and other information from people who believed it was her site.

Re:Don't Ask Don't Tell?

[Nadaka]

The KKK was founded as an organization to uphold traditional christian values as perceived by its members.

You can try to rewrite history if you want to, but minority and women's rights were and still are very much a religious issue.

Re:Wha?

[tomhudson]

Poster trolled:

It may seem shady and dubious, but it is pretty legitimate. Plus, I doubt the lawyers would put in the cease and desist letters if there wasn't a valid copyright claim behind it.

So rather than bitching about how copyright is being used, use it as an another example of how copyright is broken.

Lawyers don't lie? Lawyers get it wrong 50% of the time - go to any courthouse and watch - there's always at least one loser in every case (and sometimes there's no winner). The only thing "broken" is your understanding of copyright.

Read Title 17 [cornell.edu] before you spout any more bullshit.

You can start with Fair Use [cornell.edu]

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

Re:Don't Ask Don't Tell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama can't repeal don't ask, don't tell with an executive order. It was codified into federal law in 1993.

Re:Boo fuckin' hoo

[jackspenn]

Whether the forms collected the data for Reid's campaign or the forms just dumped the data giving users the impression they were signed up for information/activities, when they weren't, either way it is over the line.

Re:Boo fuckin' hoo

[apoc.famine]

Extremist views are extremist views, regardless of which side it comes from.

Not entirely - it depends on what side you're on, and what stage you're considering. In the US, at least, we don't have a true left-wing party like the rest of the world does. We have this weird dichotomy of ultra-right-wing, (Republican) and Moderate-right-wing (Democrat). Even an extreme left-wing-Democrat would be considered Moderate in the rest of the world.

An extreme left-wing view in the US wouldn't be an extremist view in the rest of the world by any stretch.

However, it is amusing to find out that politicians are just learning the golden rule of "stuff you put on the internet stays there forever".

Re:Wha?

[Devout_IPUite]

You do realize Narconon is heavily connected to Scientology right? The book that Willian in the quote was reading was "Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought" Frankly, I think any politician supporting Narconon needs to be shunned far away from public office. Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter, cults aren't okay.

Re:Wha?

[Moryath]

Sigh.

narCONon is a $cientology front group. It has repeatedly been found either ineffective or downright harmful [wikipedia.org].

Narcotics Anonymous [na.org], on the other hand, is an actual treatment program, the name of which $cientologists deliberately mirrored in their scam setup in order to confuse people into thinking narCONon is somehow legitimate.

Re:Wha?

[Curunir_wolf]

From the C&D Letter:

In addition it appears that the only interactive function on the fake site is the capturing of names of persons seeking to add their names and email addresses as supporters of Sharron Angle.

Surely the Reid campaign is not planning to obtain the names and email addresses of Angle supporters under false pretenses and then to misuse those names and email addresses for some purposes other than the purposes for which the individual signors intended!

Doesn't really fall under fair use - at all.