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Romney Invokes Fair Use In Dispute With NBC Over Campaign Ad
An anonymous reader writes "Mitt Romney's campaign is airing an ad that is basically 30 seconds lifted from an NBC News broadcast and NBC is trying to stop them from using the ad. I found it interesting that the Romney campaign is invoking fair use to defend the ad. Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said 'we believe it falls within fair use. We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30 seconds.'"
This is great!
Big Media Outlet: Waaah, we're the only ones allowed to exploit fair use, not other people...
Tom Brokaw was, "extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."
This is more of the same, "Infringe on someone else's freedom to protect mine? Sounds good! Infringe on my freedom to protect someone else's? Hell no!"
Bullshit...
The funny thing is, we'll be seeing more and more of this type of hypocrisy as copyright becomes more powerful and media becomes easier to catalog for the average person.
Information needs to be free to prevent tyrants and dictators from using our ignorance against us. /paranoia :) Cheers!
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
Please post a link to the video. Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_cuNkI7pzLM
NBC: Mitt Romney, tear down this ad. Yet NBC keeps running it, getting paid
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I support fair use and I love that people don't need to wade through paperwork or legalize to use something in academia, analysis, or news reporting.
Fair use is supposed to cover things like media criticism, allowing the entertainment media to show clips of television shows or films and offer constructive commentary or feedback. "Two thumbs up for Tropic Thunder" or whatever. Movie and film reviews are not always protected under fair use though and there are many times that YouTube channels with film reviews are axed. The way to get around that is usually to only use clips from the freely released movie trailers. Big media love to use clips themselves but they'll hound sites or video sharing services that allow for clips coinciding with negative reviews.
Fair use is also to cover academia, using clips for education purposes. Showing someone how a movie scene is made or why this film's scene is iconic or so on. My professors didn't need to obtain a license from whatever studio to show a hundred of us Goodfellas and The Godfather in college.
Fair use is even for news reporting, if a story needs to have a clip that might be copyrighted, and it benefits the public and actively augments the news story, then invoking fair use to use a clip with copyright might be appropriate.
But claiming 'fair use' for a political advertisement? I don't think so. There is nothing academic going on here. There is nothing being analyzed for the sake of teaching. And there is no objective news reporting occurring here. This is simply a politician taking a reporter out of context to create an artificial soundbite to further his political career. It's pathetic. It is not fair use to use a news report in a political advertisement.
That being said the news media should not be surprised. Between the shows like 'Crossfire' or the O'Reilly Factor where nothing is objective at all, and newspapers endorsing presidential candidates, the news media has been directly involving themselves in politics for years by getting involved with ideological arguments and directly supporting candidates. Now the candidates have figured out that they can just bypass the media and use the reporters words, even out of context, to help them campaign.
I just can't wait until a reporter deliberately says "I support what X candidate is doing" because he has an under the table deal to be featured in a campaign. It would be easy. Get on TV, say you "want this candidate's ideas to become realized in America", and then wait until that clip is featured all over in a major campaign because of fair use. Most of these "journalists" and "reporters" care more about fame than objectivity so they'd likely welcome the attention.
This is not fair use but the media is so worthless and corrupt that it's almost impossible to care when a politician fucks them over. The media has been screwing America for the last decade with no sign of slowing down. Now if you'll excuse me I need to watch the fifth season of The Wire.
This doesn't stop them from passing laws that would make their own actions illegal...
That totally ignores the fact that when we were backing down politicians from SOPA it's mostly Republicans that responded.
Hollywood and the MPAA has a FAR greater influence over the Democrats than they do Republicans (though yes, there are also some Republicans who are bought with MPAA money too). The difference is that thanks to the Tea Party, Republicans are actually starting to be afraid of the voters. The Democrats are only afraid of Hollywood...
Vote for the future you prefer, those afraid of you or Hollywood. Over the next few years the direction you choose will be crucial.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm sure there are many more, but I didn't want to spend my entire Sunday listing them. The point is: they've been doing this for many, many years.
Those with Flash disabled wanting to download with the Firefox DownloadHelper extension to watch the mp4 in VLC may prefer this format of the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cuNkI7pzLM
First off, "I only used X seconds" is almost never a complete argument for fair use. How much is too much? Sampling a fraction of a second of music for a new song is enough to cause a lawsuit in some cases; likewise, having a few seconds of music in the background of your unrelated YouTube clip can get it pulled. A few seconds of a copyright work in a movie can lead to a 6 figure settlement (12 Monkeys). There is a concept of the "heart of the work" in copyright law (e.g., publishing a book review of Ford's memoirs that included only a page or two of quotation was not fair use, because those pages were the most interesting part). In the case of the broadcast clip, it'd be quite easy to argue that the lead story is the heart of the work.
Second, fair use for what purpose? It's not current news, it's not parody, the work is not transformative. Maybe you could argue it was "educational," but that's a stretch, and usually only applies in an actual educational context, not in a political ad during campaign season.
Other factors... did they take only what was necessary? In this case, no... why do all the other campaign ads only need to use excerpts of broadcasts, rather than the whole thing? And, aside from copyright, Brokaw may have an argument based on personality rights, although I don't know how being a newscaster would affect that argument.
It find it ironic that despite all the Congressional rhetoric surrounding piracy and copyright infringement, these campaign folks (who are of course being advised by lawyers) simply rip off 30 seconds of copyrighted work and then cry "fair use."
Note that personally I believe this kind of use should be allowed, but from what I see of how current copyright law is actually applied in practice, it is not allowed.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Although I agree with most of your points, in this case I have to disagree. Fair use comprises these four standards:
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.
1- The ad is not using Brokaw's reputation to sell a candidate, rather (pun intended) it is just repeating some factual reporting he did about another candidate. And I'm pretty sure campaigns are NFP organizations. Nor does the use as far as I can tell change the tone or character of the original work.
2- The nature is news reporting, not some kind of creative work whose value might be diminished by others copying it.
3- This they might be in trouble for, as I doubt the 30 seconds versus a 30 minute program metric will apply. More likely, it will be how much of the story about Gingrich they played. If that was the whole piece, could be problematic. If it is the first 30 seconds of a 6 minute piece, it's probably OK.
4- Same as #2. Brokaw and NBC aren't diminished by simply repeating what they said on a newscast from 15 years ago. It's not like they are selling "Best of the Nighly News" DVD box sets.
No. Romney is part of the GOP that sponsored the bill to begin with.
Facts are sometimes inconvenient when you have a clear political bias.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bullshit. If you think Republicans will raise a finger to defend your rights, then I have to wonder what rock you've been living under for the past few decades.
Neither party cares much about copyright, because outside of Slashdot, not many people care. On literally every other issue, it's the Democrats who have tried (meekly) to defend individual rights.
You're right about one thing. Our direction over the next few years is hugely important. If you want more corporate money in politics, more rights for corporate persons, fewer civil liberties, war with Iran, the privatization of Social Security, the elimination of Medicare, and even lower taxes on the top 1%, then vote Republican.
Freedoms come in levels.
Your innate Right to exist is of a higher level than someone else's assumed freedom to kill you, morally-speaking at least.
That being said, if they have a gun and you don't; then you are really trusting this other person's moral compass and/or incentives.
The key being that example is a direct dispute between an innate Right versus an assumed Freedom;
Innate Rights are something which no legitimate government may strip from you; in very rare circumstances Freedoms must be curtailed to protect other's Innate Rights, but these are limited in scope (i.e. you aren't allowed to experiment with radioactive isotopes in your basement or aren't supposed to yell fire in a crowded theater) by definition.
Classical liberal economists (Suggested reading being Locke, Hobbes, etc.) would argue that your freedoms extend to a certain social contract into which governance and the governed enter and wherein specific rights and/or freedoms must be protected by government - namely security, labor opportunity, and a certain amount of self governance & expression. Going even further, FDR and other 'New Deal'-era politicians wanted to re-define these contracts to include an assurance of economic opportunity - so that High School graduates could go get a job and live well enough to raise a family, College Grads would be hired into the workplace in an equivalently skilled position, and total overall productive work would continue to grow; manufacturing, innovation, resource development and nation-building. For a look at how exactly this didn't work out and some of the numbers proving it, with sources, I recommend Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson's - Winner Take All Politics - How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class.
Back to your question though,
Freedoms and Rights shouldn't get confused, especially in the case of corporate entities who are virtually infinitely wealthy when those corporations claim their Assumed Freedom to limit that which is actually the Innate Right of a real person and therefore precluded from their ability to limit.
My fear is this will only worsen as technology continues to outpace the judiciary.
It seems obvious to me. They didn't have to use NBC's content to make their point, and Mitt Romney can certainly afford to license this or similar content that would make the same point. They WANT to be sued. That makes controversy you can't get any other way and makes BIG MEDIAâ the enemy of the Romney campaign.
That's red meat to the Republican base. Also, later when negative stories about Romney inevitably hit the press, the campaign will have poisoned the well.
Maybe that's because they were largely for it? You can't change your mind to against unless you were for it. I don't have numbers, but here's a picture with a source attached. It doesn't look all that clear to me.
What is clear is that Democrats are typically not on the censorship bandwagon that Republicans have to be to establish their evangelical bona fides and get the Good Christian vote. So Hollywood supports Demorats, California Republicans (and CA has a lot of Congress people), and people like Reagan and Arnie who have been part of the entertainment industry. That's the only reason Hollywood supports one side, and if that side fights back the support dries up.
Republicans did not flip due to support, they flipped because someone got it through their heads that they were passing a law that would really piss off a lot of their voters. Not the ones who contribute this time, but people who would go register to vote in order to save their WikiPedia so they could copy and paste college assignments.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/images/sopa-opera-count.png
I do have numbers; they were easy to get. Support was evenly mixed.
The original sponsor was R. There were 32 cosponsors (including the original sponsor), 16 D and 16 R.
It is true that more republicans withdrew support than dems: 6 R withdrew vs 2 D.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3261
The character of the use (as in the distinction between unmodified copying and preparation of derived works) is one of the factors which a judge weighs in determining whether something is fair use, but it's not the only one -- and by no means whatsoever are derived works guaranteed to be fair use. It's a fuzzy line, not a solid definition with clear boundaries.
Completely unmodified reuse, but of a short clip only, with zero diminution in commercial value, for educational purposes only, of a work of historic nature (yes, "nature of the copied work" is one of the factors)? Certainly, a reasonable judge could find it to be fair use.
Because it's not included in a news program aired at 6:30 PM over a decade ago?
If Romney wants to say that Gingrich was found guilty of ethics violations, then Romney can get in front of a camera and say it.
He can't steal footage of Brokaw saying it and use that.
The only reason he's using the footage of Brokaw is to imply an endorsement from Brokaw. That's not legitimate. He can convey the facts without using the likeness of someone else who doesn't want to be used in that manner.
paintball
Keep this in mind - the right wing and the left wing are attached to the same vulture.
George Wallace had it right decades ago when he said there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties (though he was a real asshole, too).
I once had a candidate (for Mayor of Baltimore) lift an op-ed piece I'd written for the Baltimore Sun and use it, full-length, as a campaign flyer without asking permissions I billed her. And after a little screaming, she paid -- once she realized that I was a freelancer and had sold *only* first publication rights to the Sun.
You are correct that Democrats, by and large, stand on the wrong side of this issue because of their allegiance with Hollywood.
You are incorrect in asserting that Republicans are afraid of the electorate because of the Tea Party. "Tea Party" is just a replacement term for "neo-con" because, after eight years of GWB, the majority of Americans finally figured out that "neo-cons" are the scum of the fucking earth.
I'll tell you what Republicans are afraid of: Black people. All those black people who rushed out to vote for Obama in '08. Those same black people who didn't vote in the congressional elections in 2010 because Obama wasn't up for reelection. Most importantly, the same black people who will make 2012 another record for voter turnout, reelecting Obama and kicking the Republicans out of congress. And the scariest thing of all for the Republicans has to be, from 2012 - 2016. If Obama can deliver better education, health care, and redistribute wealth; then all those black voters will realize the difference they've made and will likely vote in every election for the rest of their lives.
Personally, I'd rather fight the Dems on copyright issues than let the Republicans back in. It's pretty weak-sauce of the Democrats to allow Hollywood to hold this much control over them, but that doesn't SCARE me. It pisses me off. Republicans starting a war with Iran scares the shit out of me. Their economic policies scare the shit out me because I'm not rich (and even if I was, I would still be morally opposed to them). And their opposition to socialized medicine is indefensible.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
The Equal Opportunity clause of the FCC rules for Political *Candidates* is quite clear. Network television may not refuse a political ad from a candidate, nor can they "overcharge".
Support a few technologists in Washington.
They also have more in common with the occupy movement than anyone will admit.
To include Tea Party Republicans themselves. To be honest, I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard someone that self-characterizes as a Tea Party Republican say anything that wasn't totally negative or disparaging about either the Occupy Wall Street movement or the protesters themselves.
Hell, I remember back in early 2011 here in Madison, WI, when Governor Scott Walker went to war with the unions up here, people pretty much occupied the Wisconsin State Capitol for 2 months (over 100,000 at one point), you couldn't go more than 5 minutes without someone that called themselves a Tea Party member bitching and complaining about the people occupying the capitol, how "disgraceful it all is" and all that nonsense, how they have no right to protest. People from a movement that itself is named after one of the most famous protests in our nation's history, whining about protesters and the "legality of protesting", because, you know, sneaking aboard ships in Boston Harbor and throwing thousands of dollars worth of privately owned tea was totally legal back in those days or something....
There may be some overlap (and by all rights, there should be a lot more) but for the most part, they're two completely separate movements and until both sides are willing to respect each other (doubtful) they are going to continue to oppose each other even if they agree with each other on paper. The Tea Party, for the most part, has dismissed the OWS movement as being a bunch of whiny children just looking for handouts. Go read any article covering OWS, here's one from CNN's front page right now, and read the comments. I'll bet you a million bucks 99.999% of the people posting those negative comments, ask them what their political affiliation is, and they'll tell you Tea Party. Try it for yourself if you doubt it...
Back in 2006 a democratic candidate ran a similar ad, using a 24 second clip of Fox News anchor Chris Wallace to attack her opponent by showing Wallace questioned his ethics. Fox sued the candidate in 2011, but eventually gave up: http://www.firedupmissouri.com/content/fox-backs-down