Althouse: "He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after

November 3, 2009

"He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after — not that of Michael Palin."

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission."

47 comments:

MadisonMan said...: I don't think they should threaten the suit, they should initiate it.

What a stupid thing for a campaign to do.; 11/3/09, 10:31 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: This part is a hoot.

Christie has family ties to the notorious Genovese crime family. As a child, he mingled at family parties with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara -- the brother of his aunt's husband -- described by the Times as "a fearsome and ranking member of the Genovese crime family:

As a child. Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. I guess it would not have been that big of a deal if was mingling at those parties as an adult. You know, like our current President did with an unrepentant terrorist.; 11/3/09, 10:43 AM
Joan said...: Idiots.

The article is a bit much, though, going on about Republicans "stealing" songs or "using them without permission of the artist." The reality is, the artists don't control who use their songs, their publishers do, and the publishers generally just want the money. There was a brouhaha (or was it just a kerfuffle?) with Heart's "Barracuda" being used as Sarah Palin's theme song during the campaign -- Heart was unhappy but the publisher had said OK, IIRC.

Michael Palin's quote is a classic, but it doesn't sound very threatening to me. It sounds as if they're laughing it off, to be honest. I agree with MadisonMan, Python should file the suit, not just threaten it.

It wasn't even a particularly good ad!; 11/3/09, 10:45 AM
Unknown said...: Martin Lewis??

They broke up years ago.; 11/3/09, 10:48 AM
MadisonMan said...: It wasn't even a particularly good ad!

That is so true. I was so loving seeing Michael Palin -- I love this particular skit -- that I wasn't even paying attention to the words on the screen!; 11/3/09, 10:49 AM
J said...: I agree it's difficult to believe a lawyer wouldn't know this was illegal. Their legal expenses on this probably could have purchased as much as 10 seconds of commercial time in the NYC/NNJ market.

I note that the ad is now going viral...; 11/3/09, 10:55 AM
Anonymous said...: They should definitely say "Ni" to the Christie campaign even if they don't sue.

VW: Oy gevalt, such a shfible this is.; 11/3/09, 10:57 AM
KCFleming said...: Badly done ad.

I'd sue the agency that made it.

The appropriate response to Michael Palin saying they violated the copyright is:
Christie: No we didn't.
Palin: Yes you did.
C: When?
P: Just now.
C: No we didn't.
P: Yes you did.
C: Didn't
P: Did!
C: We didn't!
P: I'm telling you you did!
C: We did not!!
P: Oh, I'm sorry, just one moment. Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?; 11/3/09, 10:58 AM
Methadras said...: It's...; 11/3/09, 11:01 AM
gk1 said...: Well its only fair they did the ad after Corzine compared Christie to Mr.Creosote from 'The Meaning of life'; 11/3/09, 11:16 AM
miller said...: Oh, this passes for scandal? In New Jersey?

You liberals need to go back to clutching your pearls.; 11/3/09, 11:17 AM
John said...: It is a good thing Corzine didn't misuse an old TV clip. Instead, he just almost killed himself and several other people doing 91 mph trying to get to a fund raiser while not wearing his seatbelt.; 11/3/09, 11:19 AM
former law student said...: You have to wonder at a campaign that thinks forty-year-old sketches will capture the hearts and minds of the electorate. If they were convinced the skit would work, but didn't want to negotiate the rights, they should have parodied it with their own scenes and actors: there's only so many ways to express the phenomenon of deja vu.; 11/3/09, 11:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Michael Palin would go and speak with Christie in person to register his dismay, but he's afraid that Christie will think he's a giant Hostess Twinkie and eat him.

Peter; 11/3/09, 11:31 AM
PatHMV said...: It was a stupid commercial all by itself; the fact that it was blatant copyright infringement makes it legally as well as rhetorically bad.

That said, the post to which you link is just partisan silly with its efforts to tar all Republicans as copyright infringers in campaigns.; 11/3/09, 11:34 AM
Freder Frederson said...: The reality is, the artists don't control who use their songs, their publishers do, and the publishers generally just want the money.

Except when they do. Guess who owns all the Python copyrights? Monty Python! In addition to being brilliant comics, turns out they were pretty shrewd businessmen too. They own the copyright to all their material and do get to decide how it is used.

They apparently don't like this use.

You really should do some basic research before you post irrelevant and ignorant posts.; 11/3/09, 11:43 AM
John said...: "That said, the post to which you link is just partisan silly with its efforts to tar all Republicans as copyright infringers in campaigns."

In the day and age of file sharing, everyone is so concerned about copyright infringement. I guess Dem politicians since they accept bribes from Hollywood, have to care. But no one else does.; 11/3/09, 11:44 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: In addition to being brilliant comics, turns out they were pretty shrewd businessmen too.

Capitalist pigs is what they are.; 11/3/09, 11:45 AM
John said...: "Except when they do. Guess who owns all the Python copyrights? Monty Python! In addition to being brilliant comics, turns out they were pretty shrewd businessmen too. They own the copyright to all their material and do get to decide how it is used."

The ad went viral so there is not much they can do about it now. Must suck to be them and be wedded to an obsolete business model.; 11/3/09, 11:46 AM
KCFleming said...: fls is correct: "You have to wonder at a campaign that thinks forty-year-old sketches will capture the hearts and minds of the electorate."

Will maybe 2% of New Joiseyans get the joke?; 11/3/09, 11:47 AM
mccullough said...: As a firm supporter of property rights, I hope they do sue.

But wait til Monty Python finds out how much they'll pay in New Jersey income taxes for their copyright damages award. The juice might not be worth the squeeze.; 11/3/09, 11:51 AM
Henry said...: Is the Huffington Post always that unintentionally funny?

I love the parenthetical comment about Fiumara. You could build a chain around the earth with that kind of writing.

"Christie is no stranger to the world of crime... As a child, he mingled at family parties with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara...

(A United States Senate sub-committee investigating organized crime in the early 1980s attributed three murders to Fiumara...

(Fiumara is "a known associate and supporter of longtime Genovese crime family boss Vincent Gigante, known as 'The Chin'"...

("David Chase has said Gigante is the basis for Junior Soprano...."

(Corrado John Soprano, Jr., played by Dominic Chianese, is a fictional character...

(Character was used to define dramatic genre; this is attested in the works of the Roman playwright Plautus,[20] who was almost certainly working from Greek sources....

(Plagiarist.)))))); 11/3/09, 11:54 AM
traditionalguy said...: Another example of all publicity is good publicity. Corsine of all people complaining about another man using Monty Python sketches "without copywrite payment" these days is a desparate move by a man who is going to lose.; 11/3/09, 11:54 AM
Freder Frederson said...: Capitalist pigs is what they are.

Please, as much as I would like to--don't make me start quoting just because "some watery tart threw a sword at you" scene from The Holy Grail.; 11/3/09, 11:56 AM
lucid said...: If you want to read something really funny, read the the bio of the author of the HuffPo piece and then try to find out what he has actually done. Talk about a legend in his own mind. The man wouldn't know the truth if it ran him over.; 11/3/09, 11:57 AM
Henry said...: In the timeline of Christie Campaign stupidity chronicled at the link, I do wonder if a cease and desist order ever played a role.; 11/3/09, 11:57 AM
Joan said...: You really should do some basic research before you post irrelevant and ignorant posts.

Freder, work on your reading comprehension. I specifically said "songs", as I was referring to the songs mentioned in the linked article, not the Monty Python sketch used in the ad. I know they own their own stuff, you ninny.

I watched and enjoyed every moment of IFC's recent 6-part Monty Python documentary. Highly recommended.; 11/3/09, 11:58 AM
Freder Frederson said...: The ad went viral so there is not much they can do about it now. Must suck to be them and be wedded to an obsolete business model.

Again, my comment to Joan goes doubly to you, dumbass. You might want to check out how the Pythons are using the internet before assuming they are "wedded to an obsolete business model".; 11/3/09, 12:00 PM
Charlie Martin said...: Shephard Fairey, please call your office.; 11/3/09, 12:03 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Freder do you need a Midol?; 11/3/09, 12:07 PM
John said...: "Again, my comment to Joan goes doubly to you, dumbass. You might want to check out how the Pythons are using the internet before assuming they are "wedded to an obsolete business model"."

Are you retarded? Did you forget to take your meds? All you said was they owned their own rights. Big deal. Yes they do. But since you can post anything on the internet and have it go viral, there is nothing they can do to stop they ad from being seen. Yeah, they can sue but they have no real damages. All they can do is collect some minor royalty. But they can't take the ad off the internet or prevent it from being seen.

Are all liberals so incapable of understanding basic logic or are you just an exception?; 11/3/09, 12:09 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Are all liberals so incapable of understanding basic logic or are you just an exception?

Give Freder a break. His main expertise is physics.; 11/3/09, 12:12 PM
reader_iam said...: This was a dumb thing to do, and Chris Christie is not a stupid man. The buck stops with him, because he's the candidate, and so if they sue he'll have to settle or otherwise pay the consequences. I am curious, however, who put together the ad and was delegated the responsibility of doing so properly. Was it, for example, CampaignGrid, the online ad network working with the Christie campaign? I've been unable to determine so far who actually produced the ad. This seems like such an obvious mistake to be avoided, and thus my curiosity.; 11/3/09, 12:19 PM
Joe said...: Guess who owns all the Python copyrights? Monty Python!

I think "Python (Monty)" owns the copyrights.; 11/3/09, 12:30 PM
reader_iam said...: As for the ad itself (not the most slickly produced, I'll agree), I have to say that I smiled when I saw it (before I knew of the infringement). But then I'm part of the right demographic--as are many, many voters in New Jersey: Check out the population demographics, by age, of the Garden State, specifically with reference to those of voting age and in the age groups most likely to actually vote. Monty Python was widely available on public television stations in the '70s/'80s in that region of the country, in which I lived at the time. I certainly was able to quote "Say no more!" to my age group then (teenager in '70s) and up through my parents generations and some years older and quite often get a laugh. (Obviously, they had to watch Monty Python.) That demographic would now cover people in their 40s on up--which obviously includes cohorts which tend to vote and which make up a substantial part of the population demographic in New Jersey.

I could be entirely wrong about the thinking behind the choice. But it's a possibility, don't you think?; 11/3/09, 12:31 PM
Kensington said...: Pfft. We beat them in the war. We should get to use their stuff as much as we want.

Hand over the keys to the TARDIS!; 11/3/09, 12:31 PM
reader_iam said...: In any case, isn't pretty standard for political campaigns to use pop culture references from the '70s and '80s? (Remember, while Flying Circus dates as far back as '69, it didn't air stateside until later so its pop cultural "age" here is more mid-later '70s+. The Monty Python movies were sprinkled throughout the 70s and well into the '80s, and as I recall it, they were ubiquitous fare on college campuses for sometime after, as well.) Think of some of the campaign songs we've heard. For example, "Barracuda" dates back to 1977 and "Don't Stop Believin'" back to 1981.; 11/3/09, 12:42 PM
reader_iam said...: Hoosier: I did laugh at that bit of the article, even as it irritated me. SHAME on Christie, for not making better choices about who his aunt's husband's brother was, and for not refusing to go to family parties as a child. CLEARLY he's CORRUPT, and from CHILDHOOD!; 11/3/09, 12:45 PM
reader_iam said...: I do agree that "Christie is no stranger to the world of crime." Prosecutors at whatever level tend not to be--along with defense attorneys, judges and etc.; 11/3/09, 12:48 PM
Bob From Ohio said...: The Christie campaign is a separate legal entity. It infringed and is liable for any damages. Not Christie.

Briefly, there are statutory damages per violation plus disgorging of "profits". It is a civil action so "illegal" does not mean "criminal".

Campains do not have profits. The campaign is over today as well. There will be donations coming in and expenses paid so there may be money at the end of the day to pay the modest damages or the campaign may end up broke.

Not worth a lawsuit.; 11/3/09, 1:53 PM
Paddy O said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/3/09, 2:38 PM
Triangle Man said...: In any case, isn't pretty standard for political campaigns to use pop culture references from the '70s and '80s?

Yep.

.; 11/3/09, 3:07 PM
sonicfrog said...: After reading some of the comments, all I can say is....

My Brain Hurts!!!!!!!; 11/3/09, 4:40 PM
El Presidente said...: Maybe Christie is a sophisticated enough lawyer to know something about fair use.

Free speech for me but not for thee? Copyright holders aren't gods. This crap happens all the time and people just bow down to their copy writing betters. Monty Python made a fortune with satire and now they want to pull up the ladder. I never thought I would see it.; 11/4/09, 10:45 AM
El Presidente said...: Bob from Ohio,

Probably a good bet that Monty has registered their copyright and is thus eligible for statutory damages under the copyright law, the dollars are worth fighting over.

The Python's (or more properly the BBC) won't bring suit because they would lose. Also the BBC has a much stronger interest in a broad interpretation of Fair Use than they have in getting a few bucks out of the Christie campaign. It is a safe bet that Michael Palin is speaking out of political animus rather than any understanding of copyright law.; 11/4/09, 10:53 AM
El Presidente said...: I hate it when people string post like this but:

"Give Freder a break. His main expertise is physics."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hoosier wins this thread.; 11/4/09, 10:58 AM
El Presidente said...: Looks like Feder was finally right about something:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aqe18z3MrBPU

My apologies Freder, I should have checked before I posted. But in my defense it was you that said it.

They still won't bring suit.; 11/4/09, 11:16 AM