Copyright As Weapon In US Senate Campaign 409
Posted
by
timothy
from the so-that-wasn't-on-the-record-ma'am? dept.
from the so-that-wasn't-on-the-record-ma'am? dept.
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?"
Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess what, lady: it was your website. If you didn't want people to see you spreading loony extremist messages, maybe you shouldn't have supported them in the first place.
RTF letter and link (Score:2, Insightful)
It appears that the complaint is legitimate. Rather than clearly use the content of the prior website as part of a legitimate debate, it is being used in a way that can be seen by some people as an impersonation site, and some people could easily be led to believe it is the candidate's site, and not an opponent's site. This deception could be used to harvest e-mails and other information deceptively.
Yes a political opponent should be allowed to repost content to comment on it -- but not to repost a mirror site that can be confused as to origin of who is running it.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Insightful)
Section 107, bitches. (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
Let's see, here. I feel a little queasy describing anything related to political campaigning as "educational"; but it could definitely fall under "criticism, comment, news reporting".
The "copyrighted work" in question was a candidate's platform website, intended for broad public distribution in order to promote that candidate. Not something whose value would be decreased by broader distribution, unlike a commercial book, film, or CD. The fact that it is now embarrassing is too fucking bad and(if anything) increases the strength of the fair use "criticism, comment, news reporting" angle.
Amount and substantiality: Ok, I can see a case here. Things like the stock patriotic clip-art and site design elements(unless specifically part of the overall criticism or commentary) might well not be fair use.
Effect upon the market for or value of: This is a funny one: being a noncommercial advertisement, spread as widely as possible by its creator at no cost, there is obviously no loss of "market or value" in the sense that a book, movie, or CD would suffer such a loss; but, if the "criticism, comment, and news reporting" makes the candidate look like a fucking nutjob, it arguably reduces the value of their advertising. One hopes, though, for the sake of free speech and press, that the court would spit on such an argument.
Re:Don't think it will matter (Score:3, Insightful)
"Democrats, meanwhile, are too busy compromising, selling-out, and generally acting incompetent to offer any real resistance. Sad, sad, sad."
Their principles aren't different except in degree. Note how fast gay rights went under the bus after the election. :)
It's about time this DMCA carp hits politically se (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about time this DMCA carp hits politically sensitive people may this will drive them to rewrite the DMCA laws.
Re:Don't think it will matter (Score:5, Insightful)
And closing Guantanamo, and ending the the violations of civil liberties, and ending rendition/torture, etc., etc. This is a Democrat who courted the environmental vote during the election only to turn around and advocate the expansion of off-shore drilling mere weeks before the BP spill. Another wishy-washy Democrat who accomplishes little-to-nothing and dilutes even the things he DOES accomplish (like health care) until they're basically meaningless.
There is just no party to speak for me.
memory hole (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the one thing that drives me absolutely crazy about politics in America these days.
Politicians will say any old crazy thing, and then flat-out deny that it was ever said. Even if you quote their words back to them line by line. Even if you have a recording of the statement. Even if you have a copy of their own website or press release.
And nobody seems to care.
Sure, some reporters will try to call them out on it... But that doesn't matter. The politicians don't even blink. They just go right on denying that they ever said anything. And the voters are entirely too willing to just go along with the spin.
What? No, of course he never said that! That video of him saying those things must be a fabrication. As well as the audio recording of him making a similar statement on the radio. And the flyer you have from a mass-mailing he did last year must be a forgery. And the archive you have of his website must surely have been tampered with. There's absolutely no possible way he could have said that - we've always been at war with Eurasia!
Citation needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, copyright is fucked, but I think it would be more fun to do both things at the same time. The thing they can't stop and the thing they can, so even if they win, all that happens is the Streisand Effect.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I agree that collecting information from volunteers is inappropriate (if they are doing that), but clearly quoting the website -- even in its entirely -- serves a legitimate purpose.
Candidates always use each others words against each other, but normally they take the words out of context. What could be more fair than quoting the entire context? Arguably this is the most fair way of doing it. It seems unlikely that anyone would mistake this domain name for one that Angle would choose for herself, but that is easily enough handled.
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what, lady: it was your website. If you didn't want people to see you spreading loony extremist messages, maybe you shouldn't have supported them in the first place.
I agree with your statement but I can't help but think how your response may differ if the political parties were flipped.
It is also very common that you swing far left/right to get the primary then come back towards the middle to win the regular election. Look at Obama's campaign. Look at McCain's campaign. I'm willing to bet a lollipop that over 75% of mainstream candidates are the same way.
Laissez-Faire? Small government? Tea Party? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't think it will matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't Ask Don't Tell? (Score:3, Insightful)
In 1948, Truman issued an order desegregating the military. By 1954 (and thanks in no small part to the help of his Republican successor, Dwight Eisenhower) the job was done, even over the objections of Congress and many soldiers/military leaders. That was leadership.
Obama's answer to that? "Well, at some point I'm going to go to Congress and ask them to repeal don't ask don't tell, even though I could just do it with an executive order as Commander-in-Chief anytime I wanted to...And maybe they'll give it to me...after they commission a study on it...maybe...but I'm not making any promises...okay?" Good thing he wasn't around during the civil rights movement. We'd still be in the midst of a 50-year study on the potential effects of desegregating lunch counters.
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with your statement but I can't help but think how your response may differ if the political parties were flipped.
It wouldn't be any different. Extremist views are extremist views, regardless of which side it comes from.
It is also very common that you swing far left/right to get the primary then come back towards the middle to win the regular election. Look at Obama's campaign. Look at McCain's campaign. I'm willing to bet a lollipop that over 75% of mainstream candidates are the same way.
Agreed, but again...if a politician doesn't want people to know that they do (or once did) support extremist views, then they shouldn't have supported them in the first place.
Re:RTF letter and link (Score:4, Insightful)
It appears that the complaint is legitimate. Rather than clearly use the content of the prior website as part of a legitimate debate, it is being used in a way that can be seen by some people as an impersonation site, and some people could easily be led to believe it is the candidate's site, and not an opponent's site. This deception could be used to harvest e-mails and other information deceptively.
Yes a political opponent should be allowed to repost content to comment on it -- but not to repost a mirror site that can be confused as to origin of who is running it.
Umm.. it IS the candidate's site. Just a previous version of it, which happens to be the entire point. If they're using it for harvesting emails or other information, then sure, go after them for that, but just posting her site as it existed before as a means to illustrate her views seems like fair use for political purposes. Maybe they should stick a frame around it explaining what it is. I think that would remove any possibility of confusion, and any possible argument about the purpose of the site.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Do we know that they were actually collecting the submitted data, or was it just possible to submit the data, but the site didn't save it anywhere? I'd say that that would be a legitimate complaint. I just haven't seen anything that confirms it.
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:1, Insightful)
Guess what, lady: it was your website. If you didn't want people to see you spreading loony extremist messages, maybe you shouldn't have supported them in the first place.
I agree with your statement but I can't help but think how your response may differ if the political parties were flipped.
Maybe, maybe not, but then again, when was the last time you saw a Democrat pandering to any group even remotely as extreme as the Tea Baggers? Sorry, your premise is pretty weak, and your conclusion (implied) that "if the Democrats do it too" (whine about having their loony web sites re-aired) then it's a legitimate whine, is even weaker.
Honestly, it's 2010. How is it possible that anyone with half a brain would think that they could throw their loony crap up on the web and then run away from it a month later? Oh, wait...
Re:Don't Ask Don't Tell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Any agreement they had does not trump copyright law, and fair use has not yet been completely gutted. I'm somewhat suspicious of the collection of information submitted by users, but I haven't seen any evidence that the data was actually collected and saved anywhere. Other than that, it seems like fair use for political purposes. They are showing people exactly what she was saying, and there can be no claim that any of it was taken out of context, because all of the context is right there.
In this case, they are the same. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the average person who opposed desegregation. Now look at the average person who opposes gay rights.
See how they are almost identical?
Now look at the average person who supported desegregation. And ones who support gay rights.
See how they are almost identical?
Same background, political views, religious beliefs, even where they live.
Re:memory hole (Score:4, Insightful)
1)The media doesn't bother to do any research or any real criticism of politicians anymore. They'll whine and scream and jump up and down at all the usual talking points. They'll call every politician from the other side a liberal hippie communist or a right wing jingoist fascist, and even cover a sex scandal or two, but they don't actually criticize the real stupidity involved in the process. I'm pretty sure The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the only shows that actually call politicians out on their bullshit (yes, they've got a liberal bent, but they take plenty of shots at democrats too, so unbunch your panties), and that frightens me. We've devolved as a country to the point where the only regular source that calls politicians on their bullshit are comedy shows. I'm grateful for their work, don't get me wrong, but I wish it didn't take a jester to say the truth.
2)In this country, it's political suicide to admit that you've ever been wrong about anything ever. It's seen as a weakness to admit that you're a fallible human being. If you are wrong and you know it, lying apparently makes people think that you've got a set of huge brass balls, and that it's totally awesome! [/sarcasm] It may be related to this whole idea in this country that unabashed faith in an unchanging (well, except for every translation and reworking ever made to it) Bible is somehow the best thing ever. Never mind that the best thing to happen to us as a species is a framework based entirely around the idea that we might be wrong about what we think, so we should be willing to change it when new evidence comes along (science).
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
What world are you from, and how do I get there?
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
They didn't create one to look like hers, they used a copy of her actual website. The letter claims they were collecting information, but I haven't seen any actual evidence that they did so. That would definitely be crossing the line. Posting the site itself seems like fair use as political commentary.
Re:Wha? (Score:2, Insightful)
Political speech is a whole 'nother world from common free speech. Copyright law does not trump the right to free political speech. Never did, and it better not ever.
Any skank who uses copyright law in an attempt to silence a political opponent has no grasp on how the system is SUPPOSED to work. She deserves to be kicked out of office for that reason alone.
Party jumpers don't deserve any protection, either. Politicians who run off at the mouth this decade don't get a free pass and a blank page to start anew with different politics next decade.
Send the bitch home. She's just another fucking nazi who wants to rewrite the rules to her own liking.
Stop trying to apologize for your vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and that's not happening already? The more freaked out they get the better the mainstream likes Obama. Most Americans support gay rights, according to polls, and the wingnut fringe's ranting is steadily eroding the Republican base. You aren't making sense.
No, he doesn't. You don't have to fight when your enemy is engaged in self-destruction, and you don't have to stop doing the right thing because you are afraid someone might just call you names. You still aren't making sense.
Look, you are obviously too young to remember, but there were churches *founded* in the USA based on the biblical call to Black slavery. Ever wonder why the SOUTHERN Baptist Church is different from the Baptist Church? Look it up. I remember being a child in the 60s and hearing the preacher (in the small Virginia town my mother's from) blasting Martin Luther King as the anti-Christ, and telling his parishioners that God intended Black people to be the hewers of wood and the drawers of water - that the Bible said so. The EXACT same right wing wing nuts preaching hatred against the gays were preaching subjugation of Blacks as late as 1969, and *I was there to hear it* so don't bother telling me I'm wrong.
What is fucking retarded is Obama apologists like yourself desperately trying to shore up your self-esteem by pretending the president really really has good reasons to renege on his campaign promises. I watched the same song and dance with Reagan, Clinton, and W., and it's pathetic. Reagan did not shrink the federal government, Clinton did not fix health care, and W. did not make the economy into an unstoppable powerhouse based on Jesus. Obama is a very smart, well-spoken man - smarter than Reagan and W. by light-years, and better spoken than Clinton. But he's still just a man, with the failings of a man, and you need to understand that he is not going to bring you all the changes you hoped for. He's not even going to stop extraordinary rendition, much less give gays equality in the services.
Stop apologizing and start making a difference in your community. Get the fuck off the computer and do something useful.
Over and out, see you next week. I got some stuff to do in the real world.
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters are why American politics is broken. If running a campaign that way caused a candidate to lose, then campaigns wouldn't be run that way. Instead, we reward it. We demand that candidates do this, by emphatically voting for it democratically. We're the problem.
Politics As Usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then she's just going to have to sue him, because a simple C&D isn't going to cut it here. Let's see her tie up limited campaign funds in a quixotic (possibly moronic) lawsuit that can't be won, because this is 99.9% defensible as fair use of copyrighted work.
That is, by the time any sort of decision is reached, the election is over, regardless of the outcome of any legal action. The only hope she has is an injunction, and that's not likely because of the ugly snarl with First Amendment rights in political speech. You can send a C&D for anything you like, but for it to be effective, it has to be backed up by a credible threat of legal action. This C&D is missing that basic backstop.
This goes on all the time, at almost every level of U.S. politics. C&D's are cheap. So are FOIA requests. They get sent/filed routinely as a means of harassment by any properly funded and run campaign. At the U.S. Senate level, however, every campaign has staff prepared to deal with it. Nothing to see here really. It isn't even an abuse of copyright law; it's just politics as usual.
This is amateur hour baloney that Reid will (essentially) ignore until a suit is filed. Then he'll laugh as his lawyers make Angle's managers pay for gross stupidity. The man has money, and that's all you really need to mount a long, tedious defense that will outlast the campaign.
--
Toro
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know. I think I would feel the same. As an Obama supporter, I remember the headlines about "whiplash" at how quickly he changed positions after the primaries were over. Do you remember that? He moved significantly to the center a mere hours after he defeated Clinton, not even days or a week. There were absolutely news stories about the text changes to his website that day and that week.
Even as a moderate myself, I would certainly not try to say that copyright law should allow him to have squelched those news stories.
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's process, not voters. In the primary, there is no need to worry about anyone from the other party. So you can campaign as far to your side as will increase your votes, which is very often nearly all the way to that side. You are campaigning to gather votes. Get out and vote for me!
Now you come to the main election. Suddenly you have to avoid motivating the voters from the opposite party from caring enough to defeat you. Now you are campaigning to avoid gathering votes for your opponent. Don't bother to get out of bed and vote against me, I'm not that bad!
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:memory hole (Score:4, Insightful)
The crazy thing is that when he denied it he almost certainly wasn't "lying" in the sense that he probably absolutely believed he had never said it. Different people experience cognitive dissonance in different ways, to different levels, and with different results.
In the Bush 2 administration, the cognitive dissonance was obviously very strong, and the results were not contrition or learning, as we might hope, but rather anger, denial, and lashing out with violence.
It really was one of the very worst situations possible in democratic politics. It could have become a Nazi-like problem except for the strong system of checks and balances we have in America. The most important check in this case was the 22nd Amendment (Presidential term limits). The second most important was the 1st Amendment -- free speech -- which was certainly dampened during those dark years, but not nearly so much as it would take to squander free political thought.
So my thesis is that even though Bush 2 and his cohorts were bad people pushing terrible policies, our political system was strong enough to resist their attempts to push us into totalitarianism or world war. Three cheers for the imperfect but functional American democratic system!
religion and slavery (and discrimination) (Score:5, Insightful)
The relationship between religion and the civil rights movement was more complex than you seem to think. Christianity supported not merely discrimination, but slavery [wikipedia.org] throughout most of its history. As ideas from outside the Bible (notably from the Enlightenment) came to compete more effectively in the meme pool of western civilization, Christianity adapted, and some Christians led the struggle against slavery in the United States, and later for civil rights. But there was a big struggle within Christianity over both of those issues, and the struggle over the role of discrimination and hatred within the religion continues even today. Christianity seems to need an "other" to fear and despise, and since it's no longer socially acceptable for that fear and loathing to be based on skin color, it is now directed at gay people.
Re:Laissez-Faire? Small government? Tea Party? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Insightful)
They are all giant douches, is there really a need to find out if one is a bigger one then the other? Have we really resorted to just picking the lesser douche?
But to invoke copyright laws to hide past campaign slogans and stuff does indeed score lots of douche points on the douche-o-meter. On the other hand to dig up old things and use them in the here and now as "proof" of something is a fairly big douche move to.
Re:Wha? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RTF letter and link (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't necessary to post the entire site unmodified in order to show what her views were so I doubt it's protected under fair use.
It is if you want to avoid accusations that you're taking her statements out of context. Such accusations are always used to muddy the waters. What better way to back up your statements about the candidate than to provide all of the context of the original statements, just as she presented them? This is a political work, being used for political purposes, and as such is usually given the most expansive fair use exception to copyright.
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flamebait? WTF? Does Sharron Angle have mod points on slashdot? What Runaway1956 says is perfectly correct. Using copyright law to silence political speech goes completely against the whole idea of the First Amendment.
I think it was calling her a skank and a bitch that earned that mod. Can't really argue with that, it's an accurate moderation. He should leave the name-calling out and just make his point. It would be a lot more effective that way.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Insightful)
We have no real say in who runs for office and almost no say in who gets elected any more.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
it doesn't matter, cults aren't okay.
Thank you for that textbook example of the Genetic Fallacy [logicalfallacies.info]. If the program actually works, it doesn't really matter who takes credit for it.
If the program works but is also used to recruit for a religion, then I wouldn't consider it a good thing. You're taking them off one drug and putting them on another. I'm not even entirely sure which one I would consider to be the worse problem either. I've had first-hand experience with drug abusing family members, but I think that that's probably easier to deal with than having one that's a scientologist. Also, it's not an example of the genetic fallacy when the statement reflects the merits rather than the source either. Cults, in the colloquial use of the term, are bad because they either hold extremist views that are harmful to their members or society, or they are scams designed to benefit the leaders of the cult, or both.