DeVore Gets Sued
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore
Found this on CNN this afternoon. Gotta love it. Our very own Chuck DeVore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate who can’t seem to figure out how to follow the law when producing his campaign videos. Of course, It’s OK If You’re A Republican.
Don Henley sues Senate candidate over song use
(CNN) — Don Henley, a founding member of “The Eagles,” is suing a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, claiming the candidate is misusing two of his popular songs.
The suit filed Friday in federal court in California claims Charles DeVore is using Henley’s hit songs “The Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” without authorization.
The suit comes from two campaign videos that DeVore posted on YouTube that used Henley’s music, according to the lawsuit. YouTube has since taken down the videos. Read the rest at CNN.com (Link).
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Same thing happened to John McCain. Sen McCain was using Johnny B. Goode last year when he heard from the lawyers representing my favorite Rock n Roller and Obama supporter Chuck Berry
For someone who claims to know about the use of technology, DeVore’s either stupider than he claims, or he’s the very sort of “goon” he claims liberals to be. Copyright infringement is not protected as “political free speech”; there’s a huge difference between a satire of a song, as “Weird Al” Yankovic might create, and co-opting intellectual property in order to make a campaign ad. I find it interesting that these conservatives also seem to uniformly pick the works of known liberals as their “statements”; they’re not just combating their political opponents, but also attacking the artists whose works they usurp. I’m waiting for one of these artists to find a way to include a libel charge for crossing the party lines to steal intellectual property.
The difference between Wierd Al and this is that Weird Al needs permission and/or needs to pay royalties.
The stuff Chuck DeVore is doing is protected by the Fair Use Doctrine of copyright law and which is grounded in the First Amendment.
Chuck should really fear a lawsuit by Disney over the auauthorized use of copyrighted footage of Uncle Scrooge because those short clips seem to fall outside of fair use and parody/political speech.
Chuck fails to recognize more Caifornians prefer Don Henley to him (at least they have heard of Henley).
But the songs, parody or political speech, are a flat out lie about Boxer’s record. She’s been a champion for the middle class, yet Chuck continues to grossly distort her record in the Senate. He makes fun of her age and time in office when he failed to do that to John McCain or Fred Thompson. Why? Because they are Republicans.