Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I thought that in running for public office, your life was effectively an open book?...
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I think the summary got it wrong. Aren't they candidates for Senate in Nevada?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
Living With a Nerd
Uh, one thing comes to mind for me.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL FAIR USE?
As kfogel notes, the letter "also accuses the Reid campaign of intending to impersonate Angle's campaign, which seems doubtful, but who knows?"
Isn't parody protected?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
Harry Reid is from Nevada, so could not possibly be the opponent of someone running for senate in Arizona.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
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.
And the first a is pronounced as the first a in "atta boy", not as the o in "odd".
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
finally copyright laws are used for something useful instead of deleting good AMV's from youtube.
"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. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —
(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.
I haven't had time to look at this in detail, but this kind of thing seems to pretty clearly fall under fair use. It's criticism of the work itself in a political commentary, so it should be well within the limits.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
Maybe he SHOULD stop hosting old versions of the site, and just link to them in google cache instead. Let her fight google. Should be good for headlines, and maybe raise some awareness about the idiocy present in copyright law.
It's about time this DMCA carp hits politically sensitive people may this will drive them to rewrite the DMCA laws.
That's a form of gay rights, wouldn't you say? They haven't managed to completely level the playing field for gay people yet, as was done for women and blacks *cough* so they are just like the Republicans?
I think I've been trolled.
Blar.
Like I could have sworn for a second that this candidate's name was "Sharron Apple"... Holy crap! A computer running for a senate seat...
Bow-ties are cool.
When they attack what is essentially an attempt to close a phishing site just because it's done by a conservative.
You would think that they at least had the common sense to check out the story.
because THAT would be a "come to Jesus moment" for Congress about how FUBAR our copyright laws are.
May the federal judge rip Reid a new one so big she can hold a Tea Party rally inside him...
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!
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Post links to the Wayback Machine instead.
Go on. C&D a non-profit org. The internet won't thank you for that one, and there's quite a lot of voters connected to it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Why not just copy and paste selective remarks from the page in question, cite them correctly and be done with it, as I'm sure that would get across the whole point in the first place.
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.
Disagree != mod troll.
Try to repost campaign material, posters, flyers and entire websites from years back to make fun of them and score political points, and see how fast the Dems send a similar letter.
... she probably bills herself as "the free speech candidate", right?
Does anyone find it odd that the libertarian Tea Party candidate goes running for governement/federal/legal support when she runs into difficulty campaigning?
The neglected part of this is the potential accusation that the pages being published don't actually represent her opinions.
If campaign promised published digitally were required to come with cryptographic signatures from that candidate, the easy refutation would be to say "if I published that, where's my signature?". Of course, politicians would also fear the possibility that someone could prove with some certainty that they said a particular thing in the past.....
Apparently none of them recognize what right to fair use is, eh? How typical.
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.
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).
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.
When something is wrong to do, it's wrong to do. You can't expect that words said mere months ago would be so easy to sweep under the rug, no matter what side you're on. Plus, if she thinks so highly of US copyright law being used however the content creator feels like it should be used, who knows how much of a copynazi she will be if she gets elected.
It's about time this DMCA carp hits politically sensitive people
I suspect hitting politically sensitive people with a carp may get you arrested, and possibly motivate a rewrite of the laws pertaining to assault with a large freshwater fish.
-- $G
Here's to hoping they don't implant an illegal chip into her that provides her with sentience! Politician + sentience + galaxy diva complex = fucked
Living With a Nerd
Inaction is a weapon of Mass Destruction...
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
...now I wonder how you'd react to a woman named Lisa Apple.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
we're doomed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it was legal precedent that copyright protections did not apply to satire.
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.
You've just got to think about the purpose of copyright, to promote the progress of sciences and arts, to realize that we have to use government force to protect candidates' monopoly on the information that they put on websites to inform voters.
Otherwise, what incentive would they have to publish that information in the first place? If Reid can just give away Angle's information without getting a license or paying for it, then Angle will think twice about ever publishing again. And then 90 years later when it would have entered public domain, society will have nothing instead. In 2100 people will be wondering whether or not they should vote for Angle, and since Angle will be dead and unable to inform them, the people won't know what they need to know. So you anti-copyright folks aren't just interfering with markets; you're interfering with democracy!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yup, you're lucky you got timothy - the one actual 'editor' left here, still holding out against the barbarians.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Oh, Sarah Palin wishes she had thought of this. She could have gone after Tina Fey for using her exact words against her.
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
There are many of us who believe that ppl should have personal responsibility and be held accountable for what they say and write. The simple fact is, that she SHOULD have to account for what she said that she would do
This is actually a really smart way to keep someone from using your old ads against you. Very Good Idea.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Vote for Angle! It doesn't matter what her opinions are 'cuz she isn't Harry Reid!
E pluribus unum
That kind of reasoning is why this country is in so much trouble.
In most elections where a whack job gets nominated to run in a primary for a major office like Senator, it's because the will of the majority is split amongst several moderate candidates. In most elections, Ranked Choice Voting would have prevented the ascendancy of the whacko, by letting voters express their preferences more clearly, voting their preference for a non-whacko candidate. In the Nevada GOP primary for Senator in 2010, however, it appears that two whacko candidates were highly favored over the other candidates (election results show them getting collectively a total of 66% of the GOP primary vote), of which there were several.
Were all the other candidates even bigger whackos? Between scientology and chickens for health care level stupidity, you would think there would have been at least one better choice, but most of the other candidates received tiny shares of the vote. The "will of the GOP primary voters" in Nevada in 2010, seems to be "give us a whacko, please."
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Hard to believe ANYONE could find a worse candidate than Harry Reid to run for office, but somehow they've managed to succeed.
Nice job. LOL.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The relationship between religion and the civil rights movement was more complex than you seem to think. Christianity supported not merely discrimination, but slavery 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.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The site is slow. Could someone mirror it and post a link?
Rachel Maddow exposed this as an easy to tell but not really true story told not only by Fox News, but the general media, too. America Loves Incumbents. No, Really.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I care!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Sweet. Okay. Reid it is! Thanks for breaking it down. Actually I don't live in Nevada but I'll vote for my local incumbent Democrat, that should be almost as good. I'll have to settle for donating a little money to the Reid campaign.
Golly, I wish it weren't a contest between a turd sandwich (Reid) and a batshit crazy woo-woo nonthinker (Angle). Maybe a third candidate would be best, but given those two choices Reid is, as you said, the "clear choice".
Thanks for your analysis.
I was thinking about this a few days ago. At what point can you copyright your speech. Not political, I mean the words that come out of your mouth. I was thinking of the queen of Alaska (where I am currently living), Sarah Palin. She is constantly contradicting herself with no apology. I was thinking at some point it would be within her public persona to file a copyright suite when someone when does not like quotes her. I am guessing that somewhere in America someone has tried this, but it's all about the judge...
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
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.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
not actually accurate title here... the article states that Reid directly copied (mirrored) the site under www.therealsharonangle.com thus pretty much stealing the content. sounds like legitimate copyright violation actually, and nothing really sensational at all
You sir are full of it.
This woman is a batshit insane combination of conservative and scientologist. We have enough trouble with the "christian conservatives" we don't need any "crazy scifi story conservatives" running our government.
...now I wonder how you'd react to a woman named Lisa Apple.
Apple Lisa is a lot less prominent in my personal history than Sharon Apple... There were a few years where I was hugely into Macross Plus... Whereas Apple Lisa is just this thing I heard about, an historical oddity. So it's possible I'd just miss the reference entirely.
Bow-ties are cool.
Funny how political campains are aimed at the public and even made exempt from advertising (spam) restrictions so that their propaganda will reach you even though you might not want it, but as soon as somebody wants to refer to such a previous very public writing its suddenly private property and all kinds of copyright-laws should be considered.
Although it does not surprise me the least, that political figure wants to have it both ways : literally force their propaganda onto everyone and his goat, but disallowing anyone to repeat their public utterances if it does not suit them.
And you ask yourself why America is going down the drain ? I do not. Not anymore.
Captcha: agreer. How delightfully apropriate. :)
I just don't get it. The guy is dealing with a plate fuller than any president who's been in office during my lifetime. His campaigning was done before we were advised about how bad the economy was.
Personally, I'd prefer he stay concentrating on the economy and financial reform for now. That can do the greatest good for the greatest number of Americans. The fact that he is also taking steps on other issues is heartening.
It makes me think that once the economy is on the mend that Obama can turn back to his campaign promises instead of damage control and clean-up.
I guess I just don't get the Obama hate. Did you really think he was liberal? He was like Clinton 2, and for all his flaws that I knew then and the flaws I'm discovering now...I still would not have voted for McCain/Palin.
Blar.
The joke is Harry!
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.
maybe you should try reading the article before giving your money to either of these idiots...
How did it happen that some people who should be role models of our average voter will make a such mistake that they violate copyright? What chance do normal people have to follow the rules and regulations they made if the political campaigns do these mistakes while trying to look good enough to run the country?
So... all we have to do to remember the Scientology groups is to remember which ones contain the letters "CON" in the middle?
That makes it easy, for some reason.
TCM is a far left website, I wouldn't trust anything they say, they seem out to trash anyone who's even is slightly to the right. This really isn't news, Reid, or most likely his cronies, copied the website and is using it now. Ya I can see how that would tick anyone off.
Your post made me think of this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/6/2/
People go to AA/NA & admit to being a alcoholic/addict so they can be in denial about having a personality disorder, hence the 95+% failure rate long term.
Concentrating on a drug being the problem means they avoid the real problem underneath, more often than not a cluster B personality disorder. One can avoid the bullshit by treating the personality disorder directly then deprogramming learned behaviour (total of 5 years to 8 years max). Problem is, alcoholics & addicts have the mentality of high school kids & would rather identify themselves as drug addicts/alcoholics than be considered mentally ill as their root identity. So instead they spend multiple decades bouncing between jails, rehabs, detoxes, dives, dealers, meetings, programs, pubs & slums, etc on a endless merry-go-round of denial of the real problem & it's treatment.
To this day, the Macross Plus OVAs are still amongst my favorite entries in Anime. They have aged INCREDIBLY well.
Living With a Nerd
Unless she was planning on never having her C&D's known about, I think she has a distorted perception on what the public understands to be a "Dick Move", politically speaking.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Close.
Voting has historically been, and is now, the ability to choose between two bad choices. It is the natural result of strategic voting in a first-past-the-post system. It will continue to be like this until we change our voting method. I personally favor Condorcet, though I'd vote to try almost anything else.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.