Rick Berg Should File A Copyright Complaint Against The Democrats

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Written By:
Rob Port

Apr 30, 2012
8:02pm

Democrat Heidi Heitkamp has railed against out of state spending in North Dakota’s Senate campaign. “Obviously they [Republicans] feel a need to really bring in a lot of out of state money to make it happen for him and you know, we’ll see where that all ends up, but I think it’s really unfortunate,” Heitkamp told WDAY a couple of weeks ago.

But today Democrat Senatorial Campaign committee has launched a $76,000 television ad campaign that I’m sure Heitkamp won’t think is so “unfortunate.” What’s interesting about the DSCC ad though is that it uses a clip from one of Rick Berg’s campaigns.

Here’s the ad:

Remember that North Dakota Democrats have been threatening legal action against anyone who uses their footage of Heitkamp saying Barack Obama is “awesome” in 2008. When the footage has been used in ads by the Republican party, not to mention independent groups, Democrats have filed copyright complaints.

Maybe Rick Berg should file a copyright complaint against Democrats for using his campaign footage in a video? Berg wouldn’t, because I think he has more respect for free speech and political discourse than that, and I don’t think he’d have a case either because this sort of thing is fair use under the law (I don’t think Democrats have a case either).

But wouldn’t it be fun for Berg to get this Demcorat ad taken off YouTube due to a copyright complaint, and then tell Democrats that he’ll let their ad run if they’ll stop their objections to the use of the “Obama is awesome” video?