Last Thursday, John Kerry’s presidential campaign held a star-studded fund-raising bash at New York’s Radio City Music Hall which, by all accounts, was a profanity-laden affair. Some of the milder epithets, emanating from the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange and RIAA-affiliated artist John “Cougar” Mellencamp, involved calling President George W. Bush a “thug” and a “killer”; by all accounts (unprintable, by the way), Ms. Goldberg was comparing Mr. Bush to genitalia. After the gala was over, Mr. Kerry declared: “Every performer tonight in their own way either verbally through their music through their lyrics have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country.”

The Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign has seized on this as an example of the difference in values between their camp and Kerry/Edwards’. They have gone so far as to demand a full release of the video of the Kerry bash, while the other side has apparently stonewalled, pleading (get this) copyright laws.

A letter to the Kerry campaign sent by Bush/Cheney’s campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, raises some interesting points, if only for the outright hypocrisy given their own stance on copyright and intellectual property as it relates to new technology. It reads, in part:

Your Senior Advisor Tad Devine said that you believed that releasing musical performances “might violate copyrights and licensing agreements for the entertainers who performed and allow the Bush campaign to use the tape in commercials against Kerry and Edwards.”

I have been assured that “fair use” rules of copyright would allow you to release the tapes of these musical performances to the news media under 2 U.S.C. 107. To allay the other concern you relayed to the news media, Bush-Cheney ’04 pledges to refrain from using audio, video or transcripts of the event for any television, cable, satellite or radio advertising. We look forward to seeing this spirited display.

Again, this from those who seek to overturn and nullify fair use for the “great unwashed” (as do all the elites, including and especially Mr. “Down-the-” Hatch), and also seek to fascistically ban any and all new technology that “may” induce “copyright infringement.” Not that Kerry, by many accounts, is any different . . .

And, in a related matter, a House committee has approved DVD players that can filter out smut in movies. The full story can be found here.

Good news about the Clearplay DVD filter!

Bullsh00t

off topic i sent this in a few days ago but it never got posted so here is a link for another Janis Ian artical thats very informative... http://p2pnet.net/story/1873

wow.. thats a seriously republican slanted article.

it takes a couple musical pieces and makes it into the face of the democratic party..

wow.. i havent seen such rabid backbiting in a long time.

i refuse to even listen to kerry since he has chosen to use a campaign baced off of hate. Hate is the easy way out

'campaign baced off of hate' (sic)

mtekk,
For my own education, please provide the basis for your statements.

awehr & mtekk,
You missed the point. Granted, it was kind of couched in the rhetoric...

"Again, this from those who seek to overturn and nullify fair use for the “great unwashed” "

Mr. Brown was dissing the Repubs for claiming fair use as a basis to force the Kerry camp to divulge the contents of their recording of the bash.

The same Repubs who want to tell us that fair use doesn't count when it comes to their own stuff.

The Janis Ian article is great.

yeah carla why dont you submit it again i didnt have any luck lol its something that should be read here though

Excellent article and right on the mark. You're right, burner this should get posted.

I read the above article from CNN, and W-B, you're right , you can cut the irony with a knife.

With regards to the political gamesmanship, this is from the article

"In response, Cahill fired off her own letter to Mehlman, saying the Kerry campaign would not release the footage unless the Bush campaign released a raft of documents "relating to Bush's performance in office."

The documents include Bush's military records from his service in the Texas Air National Guard; correspondence between the Defense Department and Halliburton about no-bid contracts for Iraqi reconstruction; records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force; correspondence between the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical industry about the Medicare drug bill, and documents about prison abuse in Iraq.

"Considering that the president has failed to even come close to keeping his promise to change the tone in Washington, we find your outrage over, and paparazzi-like obsession with, a fund-raising event to be misplaced," she wrote."

Not to mention, what is Kerry supposed to do? It's a public fungraiser...jeez if you're trying to get money from these guys you don't tell them what to say. I guess at Bush fundraisers if the powers that be don't like what's playing or what celebrities are saying they get the secret service agents/bouncers to give them the bum's rush out the door or directly apply homeland security duct tape to the offending mouths.

1. Where is the CNN article? I didn't see a link.

2. I read the article from BeLogical.com cited above. The website seems to be one of those partisan Rush Limbaugh types which I wouldn't consider to be a reliable news source. Smut my butt.

And the part thrown in at the end about the committee passing out the Clearplay DVD filter player -- this is an important news article and should have its own thread. It's a start in reaffirming fair use.

Carla , the link is http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/fundraiser.flap/index.html

Kerry's campaign is based off of hate, the entire 'bush bashin'' event was a form of hate; hate, just like sex, sells. proof http://www.hannity.com that's where the proof 's at.

not all republicans have been trying to eliminate our freedoms, and fair use, norm coleman has been fighting for us, and many others have been. but for some it is ironic

Geez, HANNITY.COM? Give me a break, now there's "fair and balanced".

Geez, www.boycott-riaa.com ? Give me a break, now there's "fair and balanced".

How DARE anyone insinuate that we at boycott-riaa are "fair and balanced" in our agenda.

You can't possibly beat an enemy if you are fair and balanced with them. We are FIGHTING the RIAA/MPAA(etc.) We are NOT trying to report on them in any "fair or balanced" way whatsoever. We are trying to counter the UNFAIR and UNBALANCED way the mass media reports on these issues.

SHEESH!

And as we all know, the major media (including Fox News) are about as "fair and balanced" as a pair of loaded dice with respect to the issues being dealt with here.

Of course, the point here is the double standard with respect to the matter of "fair use" . . .

W-B, good points.

I usually agree with Shmoo, but we need to defer to telling the truth. Credibilility is compromised by tainting things.
We can report the unfairness of RIAA/MPAA, etc., and still counter their ilk without having to resort to deception. We don't really want to wallow in mire like they do.

[credibility, not "credibilility" -- my bad]