Copyright As Weapon In US Senate Campaign 409
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?"
I love copyright law. (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Politicians have exceptions for everything (Score:1, Interesting)
Politicians have excepted themselves from many different laws that the rest of us must follow, I say the opponent is exempt from honoring copyrights. If you are embarrassed by what you've said **in writing** as a politician, you deserve whatever you get.
Just proves that politicians are slimy and should never be allowed into office. We need engineers in office and more atheists who know that God doesn't exist and will actually do something instead of praying.
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wha? (Score:2, Interesting)
Risking being labeled a troll here but....
Yes, she is running for political office, but a campaign is not a public entity. The campaign is a private entity. There are certain public laws that interact with the campaign above other private entities (disclosure, campaign finance, etc). The website is the property of the campaign and consequently copyright can be applied in this situation. In fact, the campaign could very well levy a copyright cease and desist for posting current versions of the campaign's website.
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.
Re:Don't Ask Don't Tell? (Score:4, Interesting)
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,
Kind of.
IMO, racial minorities still faced pretty extreme discrimination in the military for decades. Truman also had the benefit of having a huge military that needed trimming anyway, so he had some ability to shape it. By comparison, Obama is trying to effect this change during a time when the military is overextended and arguably understaffed. And the concern now is not just preserving the dignity of those currently oppressed, but assuaging the concerns of the rest of the military (bigoted and offensive as some of those concerns might be).
Plus Truman and Eisenhower both had experience in the military, so they had the benefit of some experience and held some credibility with the troops (Ike certainly). Obama probably not so much.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are indeed correct, when running for office a candidate's life is effectively an open book. As a voter in Nevada, I'm being bombarded with "facts" from both campaigns. What I find very, very interesting is that the Friends for Harry Reid (FFHR) are very much into "sound bites" that are inaccurate and misleading. Even the new web site, http://www.sharronsundergroundbunker.com/ [sharronsun...bunker.com], misrepresents a number of Sharron Angle's positions. Most of the misrepresentations are the results of creative editing -- when you see the full statements, you see that the positions are not as extreme as the Democrats make them out to be.
I especially like FFHR's use of shock words like "Scientologist" to refer to the drug treatment program http://www.narconon.org/ [narconon.org] that Ms. Angle proposed to reduce recivitism. The FFHR are very careful to use the phrase "Scientology-based drug treatment program", which hides this fact from the "About Us" page on Narcanon:
There's more , but I won't bore Slashdot readers any further.
Keep it up, FFHR. You are fast making up the mind of this voter.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Interesting)
By the time I read this news item, the site Reid posted, www.therealsharronangle.com [therealsharronangle.com], was redirected to a site that is clearly mocking Angle. However, if I understand correctly, Reid's campaign originally reposted her entire website verbatim, with no indication that it was not being hosted by Angle's campaign.
If so, Angle's complaint may not be without merit. She seems to deserve a lot of mockery, but you don't get to pretend you're someone else in a political campaign, especially when you have a functioning mailing list sign-up form on your 'fake' site.
Smart Move (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fair use covers excerpting for a number of purposes, but there are limits to how much can be used. The complaint in the letter is not that they excerpted from her Web site, it is that they mirrored the entire thing. That's not in any of the gray areas where there are disagreements about whether you've used to much or not; it's an open-and-shut case of copyright infringement, should the copyright holder decide to pursue it. The Nevada Democratic party clearly isn't going to fight this. The link provided in the complaint letter now redirects to a different site that does not appear to be a copy of the original site.
The limits on what can be used are not set in stone, and it depends on the type of work and what it is being used for. Political commentary tends to get the widest exceptions to copyright, and posting a site in its entirety seems quite reasonable for political purposes, as it provides all of the context of the original site, and there aren't the issues of market dilution that you have with commercial works. By doing it this way, they can say that they are accurately representing her views rather than quote-mining, because her views are displayed exactly as she displayed them herself.
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:3, Interesting)
The main problem was that the Reid campaign was running a web site that gave people the impression it was his competitor's site. It had active forms, either collecting user information or dumping it but giving the impression they were signed up.
The key goal would be to stop this activity.
Because Reid's campaign used copyrighted material in this ruse, using a copyright legal argument to get the website down seems reasonable.
This in no way stops or prevents additional legal filings at a later point. If there is anyone who got an e-mail or anything that gave them the perception of being enrolled after using the site or worse the code shows Reid's campaign was collecting this information, it will sink him.
Americans are pissed off at corrupt incumbents who don't respect the will of the people. If Reid turns out to be playing an underhanded/illegal game, it will put him further in the hole then he already is, he is not going to get re-elected, yet he is so disconnected from reality and because he has so much money, he thinks he has a chance.
Besides what were the "wackie views" she is running away from anyway? Lower taxes, less spending, limited government? If you look at the polls, she is in the majority. What is so crazy about any of that? The department of energy was created in the 1970s, we did fine without it up until then, I think we could somehow survive without it in the future. Every state has an EPA and a Dept of Education, we don't need these at the federal level, they aren't part of the enumerated powers anyway.
Re:Don't think it will matter (Score:3, Interesting)
The Pubs are absolutely positively way, way, way out of line with common current American sentiments. Their rejection of moderation and diverse political thought are abominable.
But remember that the Dems are also purging moderates. For Dems, I think it is more a result of a liberal base voting in primaries, whereas for the Pubs there is a concerted top-down effort to solidify ideological unity, combined with pressure from the conservative base. Still, the ideological gulf is widening in this country, to the detriment of us all.
I don't see how that problem will be fixed, but I'm confident that it will be, or else the country will cease to exist (literally). We probably have about forty or fifty years to get it right. If we can't fix stuff by mid-century, America is doomed.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Interesting)
California just passed a very interesting ballot initiative which could change this system. All of the candidates are forced to run in an open primary where everyone can vote for any candidate regardless of party. The two top candidates then proceed to the general election. This system could help reduce the influence of radicals on both sides by forcing them to appeal to all voters during the primary, not just to their radical base. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
Thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:3, Interesting)
The real kicker is that we have no idea whether the candidate in question is a corporate stooge masquerading as a nutcase in order to win the primary, or a nutcase masquerading as a corporate stooge in order to win the general.
By contrast, her opponent in the general is clearly a corporate stooge.
Four factors aren't exhaustive. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fair Use is defined under the four criteria of Fair Use.
The four factors, which came out of case law and were later codified in the statute, are not exhaustive (even though some judges seem to treat them as such). 17 USC Sec. 107 states that the factors "shall include" the four things listed, not "shall only include" or "shall be limited to." This is part of the reason why fair use is so murky, and it's not an entirely bad thing.
Re:Boo fuckin' hoo (Score:1, Interesting)
This candidate, in particular, is off-the-rails crazy. She's on record stating that "exercising second amendment rights" might be a good way to deal with government corruption, leading no less than the f'ing National Rifle Association to endorse her opponent, who is the Democratic majority leader. This is, to say the lease, unusual for them.
Copyright lawyer fail (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoever Angle's lawyer is who sent those letters either did no research or is willfully ignoring the law.
This is a copyright lawyer fail.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are 4 tests for fair use, and this use failed 2 of them: the entirety of the work was copied, and no value was added by transforming what was copied. It seems to me that the political purpose could be served with commented excerpts ("Just a month ago, my opponent advocated eating babies - here it is in her own words") - mirroring the entire site is just the lazy way out.
You're completely disregarding the nature of the work in that analysis. Excerpts are inevitably attacked for being taken out of context, whether they actually are or not, as we've already seen with the new site since they took the reproduction down. The value of the work is that it was a faithfully reproduced copy of the original site, and therefore cannot be accused of being a case of quote-mining or distortion. This serves the public interest, and is why it should be considered fair use. The reason for generally disallowing complete reproductions is that it dilutes the value of the work, but in this case it is not a commercial work, and therefore the reproduction does not compete with anything in the market. The public interest in accurate representation of political speech should certainly outweigh the essentially non-existent marketability of the work.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Interesting)
Notably, there are four tests four fair use . . . to be taken into account. Failing two of them (or indeed three of them) doesn't mean it's not fair use.
Given the strength of the political argument for commentary, in and of itself, well, yeah it *is* hard to fail with just that one test. That case in California where the candidate tried to claim his use of Don Henley songs was political commentary is the failure point - most things inside that limit have been allowed.
Of course, even giving it up, the Nevada Dems have a win: "How extreme are her political views? After 'cleaning up' the right wing propaganda from her website, she sued to keep her previous version secret and offline! Sharron Angle - She stands by her positions . . . if you only could find out what they were . . . ."
Pug