Fox News Too Cowardly To Refuse Critical Ad Because It's Critical, Claims Copyright Instead
from the wimps dept
It's become something of a sport in the past decade for roughly half of America to mock, dismiss, and otherwise tear down the Fox News channel. Personally, I'd rather like to see all of cable news go away, but there are times when I think the criticism is a tad selective and unfair. For instance, it'd be very easy to lambaste the network for the man-clowns they trotted out in the wake of a Pew Research study that showed that mothers currently make up nearly half of American household's primary wage-earners. What was for me a meh-inducing announcement was a sign of the surely-coming apocalypse for Lou Dobbs, Erick Erickson and Juan Williams. They're easily targeted as examples of the bad on the station, but if you're blinded by ideology or party alliance, you probably didn't bother to shine a light on the absolutely glorious rebuttal by Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
What we have there is an example of Fox News presenting two sides of the debate and among their own hosts to boot. In case you can't see it, Kelly uses clips from Lou Dobbs' show within her own to demonstrate her point. I mention this only to demonstrate that Fox News was not sufficiently embarrassed by the dumb things said by some of their commentators to keep from re-airing them on another of their shows. When an advocacy group wants to use those same clips for an ad-spot, however, suddenly the scramble to copyright claims has occurred. An anti-sexism group named UltraViolet submitted the ad to air on Fox's channel, painting the commentators in a negative light and then asking them to be retired from Fox News. You might expect the channel to dismiss the ad simply on the grounds that they don't want to denigrate their own programming, but that wouldn't help in trying to keep the spot off of other networks, would it? So Fox instead relied on the go-to protocol for censoring negative information. Per UltraViolet's media buyer, Buying Time, LLC:
Team – Just heard back from Fox Business. Unfortunately, Fox has rejected the ad. Due to their copyright rules, they can’t air an ad that uses their material in a spot.It's a dumbfounding refusal on its face and is almost certainly being used as an excuse rather than a legitimate claim. Certainly nothing in copyright law would keep a network from airing commercials that use its own footage, valid copyright claim or not. It's their footage. Beyond that, this seems like a clear-cut case of fair use, the clips being central to a critique which does not seek commercial gain, are not significantly long in use, and in a way that certainly doesn't compete against Fox's own programming. Watch the ad for yourself:
Whether you think that women being primary bread-winners is okay, or whether you think that it's just the first step in the lizard-people's plot to systematically ruin American families so that children will be easy pickings for their hungry salamander love-children, using copyright claims to put down criticism is an abuse. Thankfully, UltraViolet is savvy enough to still put their spot up on YouTube instead of being too scared to show it.
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Filed Under: commercials, copyright, critics, fox news
Reader Comments
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You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
Your ability to obscure a topic with verbiage is right up there with what's-his-name, that Irish drunk who blithered on in "stream of consciousness", accumulating words without ever getting to a point. But where he was knowingly experimenting with a new style, I'm now sure that you're just a lousy writer.
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Re: You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
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Re: You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
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Re: You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
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Re: You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
Just to be clear, you're attempting to insult...INSULT me...by comparing me to James Joyce? Let me tell you something Blue, and I swear to all that's holy that I mean this, that's about the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. So thanks, pal!
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Re: Re: You have NO idea what you're writing, do you?
This Blue is an unreconstructed idiot who is most likely a huge fan of Fox News.
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I feel the same way..
All I heard was, "Change! Change is bad! Stop the change!"
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Oh yes! I know this isn't really what the article was about, but...Oh yes, so very very very true!
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there's going to be pie ?
no one told me there was pie...
is it cherry pie ?
i like apple pie fine, but cherry pie is the best...
pie...
mmmMmmmmMMmm
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I'd hack around with it to hide all the idiots that reply, but whatever
http://pastebin.com/6Cm1gJVq
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In fact a commenting system that would allow a standard +/- expand/compress for the comment trees would be totally fabulous!
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this is a little better, forces threading but a drawback is that it sacrifices next sibling regardless of whether it's ul.comments nest, works in most cases though
now back to drinking, hope this comes in handy for anyone who wants it
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Pastebin blocked TOR :(
Bad, bad sysadmin, NAT and proxies suffer with that kind of police.
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I on the other hand recall when I was in gulf one watching CNN and being amazed at the real time reporting. I relish cable news each and every day.
Now lets chat about the Main Stream Media.
I don't recall ABC, CBS or NBC ever airing an ad that was critical of their actions/views.
I have never seen an ad in the New York Times, Boston Herald, The LA Times or for that matter the USA Today.
I would be willing to make a wager that the above have used a similar theme to skirt the publishing of an ad they did not agree with.
Get off your I dislike Faux and fight for things that matter to our liberties.
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CNN is much worse now.
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Since I am a conservative I tend to Drudge. But I have noticed many of the breaking stories are links to local papers or small local tv stations.
I guess I find it funny that when I hear FOX or CNN say 'breaking news' it's a story I already read 3 days ago put out by some small affiliate.
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Specially since it is part of the Murdock empire, which reminds me of MacGyver where one of his archenemies was a Murdock too, coincidence?
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So, spewing bullshit under the guise of news is perfectly acceptable now?
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This
This is the kind of vile scummy attack ad that substitutes for political "debate' nowadays. I may have concerns about copyright, but I'm not concerned enough about it to fight for the assholes that are dragging our political discourse into the gutter.
If you disagree with someone then make your case and back your argument. This whiny, "so and so's opinion differs from mine, the need to lose their job" crap is just another spin on character assignation.
It seems to me that too much now, people go to the personal attack first and argue their case, well, never.
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Re: This
You're talking about Fox News - right?
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If you want free speech, it can't be "free except for the stuff I don't like".
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Oh, no! don't ask Faux to reform!
Fox recently said they would pull their programming from public airwaves if Aireo wasn't stopped from re-distributing their programming. I can't think of a better public service they could do, other than shutting down completely.
I used to listen to William F Buckley. Such a intelligent conservative, and while I could grant that he had valid points, I never once agreed with his conclusions. But I never ONCE thought of him as an asshat. This current crop of Faux News talking heads, almost without exception, would be an insult to asshats everywhere.
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Re: Oh, no! don't ask Faux to reform!
LOL - good one
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A blemish on the Techdirt brand
As to trotting out copyright in order to undermine criticism- this article doesn't seem to suggest that such a thing has happened. According to this article, Fox News did not seek to universally remove or prevent from publication works containing allegedly infringing content. According to this article, Fox News did blatantly confuse 'copyright rules' with internal marketing policy. Or perhaps the quote from UltraViolet indicates that Fox News misunderstands that 'copyright rules' are not subject to in-house edits.
This article does seem to mix topics intentionally. The summary paragraph tailors the focus significantly toward applying a hatchet to Fox News. The crux of this article isn't about copyright abuse. If it deals with copyright at all, it reveals the rampant ignorance of the general public concerning copyrights through Fox News' obvious misinformation.
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Re: A blemish on the Techdirt brand
The quote is attributed to Buying Time, LLC.
My mistake.
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Re: A blemish on the Techdirt brand
Don't giving a reason could fuel commentary and telling the truth would be embarrassing, so they used copyright as justification for abhorrent conduct that would be criticized otherwise, showing that copyright is not used to protect distribution channels but is being used also to shield parties from criticism, which is misuse at beast or downright abuse depending on how you chose to look at it.
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YouTube bots
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Lizard People
I, for one, welcome our new Lizard People overlords.
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Oh...the insanity!
And yet that still wouldn't be the craziest conservative conspiracy I've heard.
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What debate -- Whether bigotry will be tolerated?
It is entertaining to see one bigot revolt against fellow bigots.
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one day
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The expander has been tested on multiple browsers, and they all appear to work fine when video is there. What funky browser are you using? We can check it out.
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What happens is that when you place the video in the wrong part of the story, it covers up the "EXPAND" tab, except for a very few pixels to the side. So there is no simple way to click the expander, as clicking anything else is considered a click on the video.
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Then again thinking and facts are clearly not your strong suit. How much time have you spent your life in Germany?
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Lizard-People?
Uh Tim, I think you have been watching too many "V" reruns.
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People just need to stop watching FOX ffs
That said, people just need to stop watching the train wreck that is FOX news. I know its so awful its funny, but please stop and let it die.
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