Kennedy Campaign’s Copyright Infringement
The campaign for Democratic Mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy has been forced to pull an Internet ad ad attacking incumbent Greg Ballard on job creation because the footage used violated federal copyright law.
The campaign used clips from an RTV 6 newscast of reporter Kara Kenny questioning the Mayor on job creation numbers and him walking away after a few minutes. (Full disclosure, I work at 6 as a political analyst.) The campaign used the ad the imply the city’s job creation numbers were not accurate. The ad appeared on both the campaign’s website and on the Indianapolis Star web’s page.
However, the campaign never got permission from RTV 6 to use the material which is copyrighted intellectual property. Once notified by station management, the campaign tried to get permission after the fact, but was denied. Under the “fair use” doctrine, there are times when you can use someone else’s copyrighted material, such as for teaching, research, scholarship, etc. but not so much on political campaigns.
While the ad did have an effective element to it, I was surprised that no one decided to check the legality of using it before running with it; especially since the candidate is an attorney herself and this would fall under the category of “things you learn during your first year as an attorney” and the campaign manager has experience with Organizing for America.
What’s also worth noting is that if someone at RTV 6 or the parent company McGraw-Hill really wanted to be a hard-nose about this they could sue the campaign for copyright infringement and also file criminal charges against them. I’ve worked on a couple intellectual property cases before and if someone has a bug up their rear, it can be a real pain because the penalties are pretty stiff if you lose.
I guess now the campaign will know better for next time.
