Copyright

The intersection of copyright law and elections is growing to be an important new area of study and litigation. The Center for Democracy and Technology has documented and analyzed at least a dozen recent instances where video hosting sites like YouTube have removed political campaign videos pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s requirement that such sites comply with take-down requests submitted by copyright owners. Indeed, in the run-up to the 2008 presidential vote, the John McCain campaign asked YouTube to more carefully scrutinize political videos for fair use or non-infringement before removing them pursuant to take-down requests. (YouTube’s response noted that such special treatment was not only logistically impractical, but also might push the site out of the safe harbor protection afforded it by the DMCA for compliance with the “blind” take-down regime).

A related copyright/campaign controversy grabbed particular attention during the recent election cycle. In September, Fox News filed a copyright infringement suit against the campaign of Robin Carnahan, the Democratic then-candidate for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat. (Carahan was eventually defeated at the polls by Republican Roy Blunt.) The complaint alleged that Carnahan’s campaign “usurped proprietary footage from the Fox News Network to made it appear – falsely – that [Fox News] and Christopher Wallace, one of the nation’s most respected political journalists, are endorsing Robin Carnahan’s campaign.” The ad (which you can watch here) consists almost entirely of footage taken from Wallace’s interview of Blunt on Fox News earlier this year. In addition to copyright infringement, the complaint alleges invasions of Wallace’s privacy and publicity rights. [Read more…] about Fox News Wants You to Know They Didn’t Support a Democrat

Fox News wants to make sure their viewers know they don’t endorse Democrats. The network has sued Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan for copyright violations based on a campaign ad. Fox News wants to ensure that the public knows the network has not endorsed a candidate in the Missouri race and says the ad, which shows Chris Wallace interviewing Carnahan’s opponent about allegations that he acted improperly while in Congress, makes it appear that Wallace is speaking on the side of the campaign. The suit is considered by some experts to be the first case where a media outlet has sued a political campaign over copyright violations. There are also concerns that this is not a true copyright concern because, according to copyright lawyer Ben Sheffner, copyright disputes are about revenue not reputation damage. The ad has been pulled from the web and YouTube, but is still airing on television. The case is currently pending in federal courts.

Dreaming of a Third Party? Libertarians in Georgia are dreaming of a permanent place on the ballot. Their gubernatorial candidate, John Monds, is polling at 9% while the Republican candidate, Nathan Deal, continues to have financial problems. If Monds can capture over 20% of the vote, the Libertarians will be considered a “political party” under state election law, allowing them to hold primary elections and be guaranteed ballot access in future races. In the past, no Libertarian candidate for governor has surpassed 4% of the vote. Read about it here.

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