DMCA Takedown Notice Leveled Against Ohio Congressional Race Ad 130
Ponca City, We Love You writes "EFF reports that after Ohio Congressman John Kasich put out a commercial featuring a man dressed as a steelworker discussing Governor Ted Strickland's record, Strickland's campaign folks apparently realized that the 'steelworker' was really a paid actor, and put together their own video, mixing in clips of some of the actor's other work to make fun of Kasich. Now the DMCA has been used to send a takedown demand to YouTube that it remove Stricrkland's video for at least 10 days because it uses short clips from the actor's movies." The video has since been restored, some of the reasons for which are listed below.
"First, the political video's use is transformative because it provides evidence that the supposed steelworker was actually a paid actor and as the Supreme Court explains, transformative works 'lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine's guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright.' Second, the political ad only uses a few seconds of the original film, so a fair use is particularly justifiable when it uses the minimum necessary to make its point. 'What's troubling, yet again, is that this form of political speech has been removed from YouTube in the heat of an election battle,' writes Mike Masnick on Techdirt. 'Even if the takedown was not political, it's clearly a case of copyright law being used to stifle political speech.'"
Re:No consequences (Score:3, Interesting)
We just need to be more creative about it.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/13/swedish-man-may-pay-largest-speeding-fine-ever/ [autoblog.com]
Re:R & D please? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fair use? (Score:4, Interesting)
But the baffling thing here is that this isn't some big company demanding a political ad be removed; it's a tiny film studio. And the film in question is free on the internet.
It just seems like there has to be a missing piece to this story.
Is it really that baffling? Let me take a stab at that missing piece:
Campaign manager: Hey tiny film studio, how do you feel about perjuring yourself to shut down this ad that's making us look bad? We'll owe ya one, and we have this funny feeling the perjury won't be prosecuted anyway.
Tinyfilmstudio: A corrupt congressman in my debt? Yes please; consider it done.
Campaign manager: I knew we'd see eye-to-eye on this one.
Re:No consequences (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No consequences (Score:3, Interesting)