Sharron Angle Insists She's Going To Sue Harry Reid For His Reposting Of Angle's Own Website

from the political-calculations dept

Thu, Jul 8th 2010 2:27pm — Mike Masnick

Earlier this week, we wrote about the bizarre decision by Nevada Senatorial candidate Sharron Angle to send a cease-and-desist to Sen. Harry Reid (who she's challenging in the election) over Reid's decision to put her old website back online. Reid was doing so to point to statements Angle made on her old website that were toned down on her new website. The idea, of course, is to suggest that she's hiding her real positions. Whether or not that's true, Angle accused Reid of both copyright infringement and trying to trick users into giving the Reid campaign their information.

The Reid campaign originally complied with the cease-and-desist and (of course) went public with it, generating much more attention to the original issue. With so much publicity, Reid's campaign has put the website back up. Assuming that the reposted website is the same as what was up before, it's clearly done by the Reid campaign -- so the claims of possible confusion or tricking users is ridiculous.

However, Angle is now saying that since Reid has put the website back up, she's definitely going to sue:

"Well your website is like you, it's your intellectual property," Angle said. "So they can't use something that's yours, intellectual property, unless they pay you for it or get your permission... And he didn't ask me for it, and he didn't pay me for it. I would have sold it to him."

Angle was asked: "So the latest is that it is up again, and you are just going to have to see as far as pursing this in court? Is that the plan?"

"Well we are going to pursue it," Angle replied. "I don't think that Harry is above the law. He needs to obey the law if you and I need to obey the law. Harry isn't immune. He needs to obey the law as well."

Now, at a first pass, Angle (while a bit confused on the terminology) is probably correct that Reid is technically "infringing" by posting the website, but the Reid campaign would (I'm sure) hit back with a nice fair use defense that would have a pretty high likelihood of succeeding. That said, the whole idea of actually going to court over this is preposterous. This is clearly not what copyright law is about and the whole point by the Reid campaign is to draw more attention to Angle's old website. If she were politically savvy, she would just drop it, rather than drawing more attention to it herself. Going to court makes her old website the story, even as she's trying to hide it.

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Filed Under: copyright, harry reid, nevada, politics, sharron angle, websites

29 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 2:47pm

The original version (at least from what I could tell from google cache) did not have the disclaimers at the top and bottom.
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WDS (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 2:54pm

Wayback Machine?
So is the Wayback Machine infringing as well? How about Google's cached pages. I'm sure you can find exactly the same pages there. I assume that is probably where he got them.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:14pm

Govt granted monopoly power, and the demand and expectation to receive it, is just embedded in the monopoly capital of the world. Is there anything that the U.S. does not grant monopoly privileges on?
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Kevin (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:17pm

Waste of time
Considering the current political climate, and the troubles we as a nation/state are facing I have to completely agree with Mike. Now I am not going to go all political as that is not what this forum is for. She should be using her resources to actually run her campaign. If her purpose is to defeat Harry Reid then she needs to focus on the issues of the election, not some infringement case where she may or may not actually win. I actually wrote an e-mail to her campaign after I read the initial post and followed it up with some other sources explaining that she was wasting time and to respond in kind and repost his website or at least formally answer the points which Reid was attempting to highlight with this stunt in the first place. Obviously she chose not to listen.
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Ron Rezendes (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:18pm

Re:
Is there anything that the U.S. does not grant monopoly privileges on?

Poverty
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:20pm

Re: Waste of time
"I actually wrote an e-mail to her campaign"

Don't help her out. If she's childish enough to sue for copyright infringement then she has no business being a politician. The last thing we need is more children running our nation.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:24pm

Re: Waste of time
Politicians reading e-mails from concerned citizenry?

Preposterous.
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fogbugzd (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:28pm

Re: Re: Waste of time
The trick is to send along a big check.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:28pm

You know it doesn't matter who you vote in, they all are scum practically with very few exceptions today.

Once they get inside they take their cues from the rest of the scum in that pond and keep doing the same things they been doing for a long time now and that is screw the public.
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chrobrego (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:29pm

I checked the website, and they aren't posting her exact website; just the policy documents detailing positions she took to get the Republican nomination. She apparently now wants to portray a more centrist viewpoint after appearing as a wacko to the Republican base.

Funny how politicians can flip on a dime like that. I don't trust any of them.
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BAlbrecht (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 3:29pm

Re: Re: Waste of time
My thoughts exactly. This is a political campaign, and the more she reveals her ignorance of the law, the less likely it becomes that she'll win the seat. If she chooses to Palinize herself, more power to her. Maybe she's really vying for a job on Fox News...
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Bradley Stewart, 8 Jul 2010 @ 4:08pm

I'm Not Kidding Or Being Vindictive
but you would think that even the Republicans would try and field a candidate for The Senate that didn't sound like a mental patient. What is going on in this woman's mind? As WC Fields once said "It was such a nice hotel they even had mattresses on the walls".
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Philip Zack (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 4:42pm

Hiding her real position?
Really? Perhaps she's more concerned about people realizing that she lied about her positions during the primary campaign in order to get on the ballot. She wouldn't be the first politician to say whatever would garner votes, regardless of whether they supported those positions. The strategy is not much different from how the GOP got the Dems to strip anything beneficial to their *human* constituents from what was supposed to have been health care reform legislation. The compromises they agreed to during negotiations were not compromises they were willing to support when the bill actually came to a vote. And we don't appear to have any recourse for this duplicitous behavior.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 4:50pm

Re: Re: Re: Waste of time
Exactly, I want someone who is going to fix our broken IP and monopoly laws and someone who sues for IP infringement doesn't look like an appropriate candidate.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 5:15pm

Always interesting to see something unusual (in this case copyright law) used as a means to an end.

Let's get this lawsuit on file, quickly dispatch efforts by Reid to make it go away, and then sit Reid down for a deposition (recorded on video, of course).

This would be a "debate" controlled completely by one of the "debaters", and with virtually no groundrules given that almost everything is fair game for questioning under the federal rules governing discovery in civil lawsuits.

Frankly, were I Reid I would be none too happy that someone in my camp placed me in this type of situation several months before the general election in November. My God, I might actually be forced to give truthful answers to questions, a definite no-no for anyone in political office.
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Higgety Piggety, 8 Jul 2010 @ 5:28pm

Party of Stagnation
If you love money... vote Republican. Republicans give Republicans a bad name.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 7:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Waste of time
Given some of her stated positions on the web site she is a train wreck. Ending Social Security should be enough to do her in but some of the others positions are worse.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 7:28pm

Re:
But if Reid had to be deposed so would Angle. Angle's deposition would just end her campaign. She can only handle the friendly conservative/reactionary media which means the main stream would never see her except in the excerpts that make her sound like a total loonie.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 8:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Waste of time
More like Socialism Security, am I right?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 8:57pm

Re: Re:
That's an insult to Canadian money.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 9:45pm

What goes on the internet.... stays on the internet.

-Lesson taught circa ~1996.

Maybe she could appear more out of touch? It would be pretty difficult.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jul 2010 @ 10:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Waste of time
I'll say there is one thing about a senator in a tight race getting sued on the broken IP laws and by his political opponent to boot.

There is a non-zero chance that he may get the idea that he has the power to fix the broken IP laws.

Or better yet, Reid loses the lawsuit and/or the tight election-- and his party gets the idea that they have the power to...

Yes, I'm dreaming.
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bradmoreso (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 5:00am

Public service implies loss of rights
IMHO when someone registers for election to public service, s/he gives up certain rights reserved for private citizens. When, exactly, did elected officials turn into a privileged class?

Oh, wait, never mind -- that was when We the People started to tolerate them making rules that applied only to themselves.
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Mike Jameson, 9 Jul 2010 @ 6:22am

Lies and the Liars who tell them...
So, in a desperate attempt to hide her true political opinions (NO abortions, even if the 12-year-old was raped by her father, for example), no equal civil rights for all citizens of America, dismantling various federal departments that she doesn't like, including Social Security and Medicare, she RE-WROTE her own website, took down the website that revealed the monster she really is, and now that Harry Reid has exposed her hypocrisy, she's bitchin' about it?! That's about right, I suppose, all things considered...
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Ray Dowd (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 6:55am

Elections and Copyright Infringement
In the context of an election, campaigning against your adversary is pure political speech at the core of the First Amendment. The First Amendment forbids Congress from passing laws that abridge free speech. Copyright law does not protect "facts". Reid's re-publishing his adversary's political positions is pure First Amendment speech, and falls squarely in the statutory definition of what is NOT copyright infringement (fair use) "for purposes of commentary, criticism, etc.". The statute says that you can publish to criticize, that's what Reid is doing.

So the First Amendment and the actual text of the Copyright Act expressly authorize Reid's publication of Angle's website.

Ray
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DanVan (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:29pm

Again, the hypocrites on this site (commenter wise) are idiots. These people are on here ALWAYS applauding this site for pointing out situations like this yet now that their idiotic right-wing candidate has done something stupid, they are completely unable to look at the reality of the situation

Rather than understand the situation, they look at it with their bias glasses on and seem like morons trying to justify it

Angle is going to get killed in court
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2010 @ 11:53am

My biggest question is why are we hiding behind only two candidates? Have the parties hidden their atrocious records that well? Why not give the truth to the citizens? There are other choices? It is all about money now, isn’t it? Sharron and Harry have it and the rest of us don’t. I am Jesse Holland and encourage the media to look beyond the promises of party candidates and replace the office, as it belongs, to the state and the citizen’s therein.
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Jesse Holland, 4 Sep 2010 @ 11:55am

Same old games - Stand, Think and Vote!
My biggest question is why are we hiding behind only two candidates? Have the parties hidden their atrocious records that well? Why not give the truth to the citizens? There are other choices? It is all about money now, isn’t it? Sharron and Harry have it and the rest of us don’t. I am Jesse Holland and encourage the media to look beyond the promises of party candidates and replace the office, as it belongs, to the state and the citizen’s therein.

Politics as usual it seems. Both parties have betrayed our country and our financial securities. Currently you have congress representatives of each party talking about our failing country. They, the Republicrats, are truthfully responsible and yet, mysteriously, we are calling this good and acceptable? Stand up, think and place your vote with a true voice of the people by selecting Jesse Holland for United States Senate representing Nevada and the citizens. The media has chosen your candidates for the elections, but we, the people, have suddenly accepted their choices? We talk about taking back our rights and country, but we fail to do much about it? Do the right thing and elect Jesse Holland who is easily found online! Even the polls are purchasable. If you leave out the voice of the people, you end up with a bought poll. Maybe your parents were right by saying don’t believe everything you read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jesse Holland, 4 Sep 2010 @ 11:55am

Same old games - Stand, Think and Vote!
My biggest question is why are we hiding behind only two candidates? Have the parties hidden their atrocious records that well? Why not give the truth to the citizens? There are other choices? It is all about money now, isn’t it? Sharron and Harry have it and the rest of us don’t. I am Jesse Holland and encourage the media to look beyond the promises of party candidates and replace the office, as it belongs, to the state and the citizen’s therein.

Politics as usual it seems. Both parties have betrayed our country and our financial securities. Currently you have congress representatives of each party talking about our failing country. They, the Republicrats, are truthfully responsible and yet, mysteriously, we are calling this good and acceptable? Stand up, think and place your vote with a true voice of the people by selecting Jesse Holland for United States Senate representing Nevada and the citizens. The media has chosen your candidates for the elections, but we, the people, have suddenly accepted their choices? We talk about taking back our rights and country, but we fail to do much about it? Do the right thing and elect Jesse Holland who is easily found online! Even the polls are purchasable. If you leave out the voice of the people, you end up with a bought poll. Maybe your parents were right by saying don’t believe everything you read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]