[via Michael Geist] The Conservatives have an ad titled Even Liberals (it’s on their site) that features a clip of (Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister) Paul Martin at a town hall meeting televised on the CBC. In the clip — barely a couple of seconds long — Martin makes the embarassing admission that he approved an “attack ad” that even some members of the Liberal party didn’t like.
The Liberals claim that in using the clip, the Conservatives are infringing on the CBC’s copyright. I agree with Michael Geist — I think that the Conservatives can easily argue that use of the clip is fair use since it’s short, is being used in a critique and is news reporting (for more on what fair use is, see this entry). This is just another example of copyright being misused as a stick — this time to beat legitimate political speech into silence rather than beat cash out of customers.
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First let me say that I'm oppose to Sam Bulte. I think what she's doing stinks, but what if your efforts pay off, and the NDP candidate takes her seat? What if this one single seat is enough to give the Conservatives the majority they need.
Do you think you'll be serving the interests of progressive Canadians? Can you imagine what Harper thinks of copyright? He is probably your biggest fan right now.
My concern is that there is a lot of hysteria over copyright right now, and that in fact it is small potatoes in comparison to the greater issue of having a Conservative government. I hope you and Cory D take this into consideration.
Yes, I have taken that into consideration, and I'll have to elaborate on that fact later on. However, my capsule defense: our work on the copyright issue will be remembered as the issue that undid Sam Bulte's campaign. That is a fact that will not be lost on politicians, regardless of party.