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
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
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.
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.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
"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.
"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. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's about time this DMCA carp hits politically sensitive people may this will drive them to rewrite the DMCA laws.
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
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.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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 "Voters are Rabidly Anti-Incumbent (tm)" line was trotted out in the primaries, even though only ONE incumbent out of 80 or so elections lost, and he had been arrested on charges of fraud, corruption, and I think also domestic violence. FOX hopes everybody believes them when they say voters are anti-incumbent, because then Republicans will win. The thing they know, which is 100% true by the way, is most voters will vote for whoever they think will win, that way, in a way, they win too!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
And then the grass-roots loony fucknut republican hate-machine would start spewing its disgusting insanity all over the place, calling for Obama to be executed as some heathen gay-loving whore of babylon. He's got to try to fight the bullshit spewing from the rampant religious right *and* try to do the right thing. Black civil rights had nothing to do with religion, just racism. The gay issue has everything to do with religion, which is why it's a completely different kettle of fish to sort out. Pretending they're directly analogous is fucking retarded.
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.
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.
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
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.