Romney camp leaving NBC ad on air

[Little Star]

POLITICO
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
1/28/12 4:20 PM EST

Romney camp leaving NBC ad on air

snip~
“We just received the letter. We are reviewing it. But we believe it falls within fair use,” Fehrnstrom said. “We didn’t take the entire broadcast, we just took the first 30 seconds of it.”
~snip

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/romney-camp-leaving-nbc-ad-on-air-112664.html

[gopiscrap]

1. NBC should pull them from their

and sue Willard if he runs them on another channel!

[bigdarryl]

2. These people are TOTAL ASS!!!!

[BootinUp]

3. I hope NBC keeps the heat on em.

[tularetom]

4. I hate to defend Romney but

fuck NBC. If they were factually reporting an action taken by the house of representatives, and if the Romney campaign is not editing their report, I believe their news reporting is in the public domain, unlike their entertainment content. I think they're just scared shitless of offending any republicans at this point.

Wait until the Romney people decide to use some NBC footage in the general election campaign against Obama. Bet you don't hear a big uproar from NBC then.

[Little Star]

5. Yep! There will be silence then from NBC!

[TheWraith]

6. Technically, it is NOT public domain.

Their newscasts are still their property. The argument is whether the Romney ad falls within an acceptable definition of "fair use." This is how US law defines fair use, but it's less a specific set of rules than guidelines:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[1]

You could probably make a case that the ads fall under the heading of "comment."