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
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.
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.
"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.
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
"I haven't had time to look at this in detail" - the key part of your comment is this.
The summary makes it sound like they took screenshots and posted them on harry reid's website. What actually happened is that they copied Sharron Angle's old website in its entirety, created a new domain with her name in it (therealsharronangle.com), and hosted a copied version of the website themselves, without indicating on the website that is was a parody. This is known as a copyright violation, and could even be seen as a phishing attempt.
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.
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
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.
Does anyone find it odd that the libertarian Tea Party candidate goes running for governement/federal/legal support when she runs into difficulty campaigning?
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
The KKK was founded as an organization to uphold traditional christian values as perceived by its members.
You can try to rewrite history if you want to, but minority and women's rights were and still are very much a religious issue.
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
This is actually a really smart way to keep someone from using your old ads against you. Very Good Idea.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
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.
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
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.