ABC Sports Threatens To Hit Tim Pawlenty With Copyright Infringement Claim Over Miracle On Ice Footage
from the copycats dept
Back in April, we noted that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had created a commercial that many people noted looked like a copy of a campaign ad for Tim Palwenty, just substituting Canadian scenery for American scenery. In that post, we also noted that Harper had apparently failed to properly license the hockey footage he used as a part of the commercial. Well, now it seems that Pawlenty is copying Harper... in choosing not to license hockey footage. Pickle Monger alerts us to the news that ABC Sports says it's going to send Pawlenty a cease & desist for using footage from the famous "Miracle on Ice" 1980 Olympics match in which the underdog Americans beat the Soviets. ABC says that the footage was not licensed -- especially the use of announcer Al Michaels -- and that they were considering sending a cease & desist. Of course, I'd still argue that this kind of usage should count as fair use, but for the most part, uses like this are not seen as fair use.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: commercials, copyright, miracle on ice, politics, tim pawlenty
Companies: abc, disney
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Pshaw
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My god! A cease & desist letter!
Let this one steep a while, Mike, it's pretty weak so far.
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Re: My god! A cease & desist letter!
Seriously, how many people actually care about a game played in 1980 let alone actually watch it? Any person who actually has any interest in it will read about it rather than search for a clip of it buried in a politicians campaign ad.
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Re: Re: My god! A cease & desist letter!
Personally, I think the footage should be considered historical, but I don't agree that the video footage should be able to be used by someone else for profit, and that's what a political campaign is all about these days.
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Re: My god! A cease & desist letter!
In other news, dog barks at man.
"it's pretty weak so far."
You're telling me...
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Re: My god! A cease & desist letter!
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Re: My god! A cease & desist letter!
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Disagree on fair use
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Re: Disagree on fair use
Why? It doesn't interfere with the market for the original...
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Re: Re: Disagree on fair use
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Re: Re: Re: Disagree on fair use
This one is barely gray in my eyes, pay up Pawlenty, or quit using it.
Better yet, get some of your congressional buddies together and let's change the copyright laws to a "beyond reasonable" time frame of 20 years and be done with this nonsense!
Win-Win!!
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Re: Disagree on fair use
As Eldred re-emphasized, fair use is one of copyright's builtin accomodations for the first amendment.
There are two slightly competing views of the expression protected by the first amendment. One view is that political speech is at the core. The second view is that scientific and educational expression is just as important as core political expression.
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"What's yours is also mine" in Mike Masnick's world.
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"I'm not stupid if I accuse Mike of believing something he doesn't" in AC's world.
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Re:
Um..no. I would assume Mike's definition of fair use is the legal one. You know, the one written into the Copyright Act of 1976.
Here is an overview of it from the U.S. Copyright office, just in case you are not familiar with it:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
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Yeah, OK, my bad. I didn't realize you were just sniping for no apparent reason.
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What if politics were more like hockey .....
(rushes to make popcorn)
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question for ya
I already copyrighted this Idea, just but typing this
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Re: question for ya
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Pay the Piper
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