Mark Griswold may be an asshole, but more significantly, he’s a really crappy muckraker. I’d throw in a link, but honestly, he doesn’t even deserve that much respect.
What a maroon.
UPDATE:
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Publicola explains.
This afternoon I sent the following email to TVW President and CEO Greg Lane:
Subject: Bad Faith DMCA Takedown Notices
From: david@horsesass.org
Date: November 2, 2009 2:08:55 PM PST
To: greg@tvw.orgDear Mr. Lane,
I am writing in regard to the takedown notices TVW recently issued to YouTube and Vimeo regarding my video “Suzie Huckabee,” in the hope that we both can avoid any unnecessary legal expense.
Under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), copyright holders are required to make a good faith effort to consider Fair Use before issuing a takedown notice. Judging from your public statements and actions regarding a Dow Constantine ad which similarly makes use of TVW video, and for which TVW also issued a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube, it is apparent that TVW understands that use of your clips in this limited manner merely violate your policy, not your copyright. I do not doubt that you believe that Constantine and I are “hiding behind fair use,” but that acknowledgment in itself clearly suggests that your DMCA takedown notices were not issued in good faith.
As such I respectfully ask TVW to remedy the situation as follows:
1) Promptly communicate to YouTube and Vimeo that your DMCA takedown notices were issued in error, and formally request that the video in question be restored.
2) Promise, in writing, that TVW will refrain from issuing similar DMCA takedown notices in the future, without first making a good faith effort to consider Fair Use, as required by law.
3) Issue a formal apology for misusing the provisions of the DMCA in your efforts to enforce your own non-binding copyright policy.
If all three of these steps are fulfilled, I will accept the issue as closed. Otherwise, considering how TVW has repeatedly harassed me with bad faith DMCA takedown notices — and considering the dangerous precedent your routine abuse of the DMCA has set — I will regrettably have little choice but to seek redress through the courts, so that this issue may be settled once and for all… and well in advance of the next election season.
Sincerely,
David Goldstein
HorsesAss.org
“Politics as unusual.”
So there.
The details have yet to be released, but the latest KING-5/Survey USA poll shows Democrat Dow Constantine surging to a 10 point lead over Republican Susan Hutchison in the race for King County Executive.
The poll, conducted over the weekend, shows Constantine leading 53-43; that’s a fifteen point swing from KING-5’s 10/13/09 poll, which showed Hutchison leading 47-42, and is consistent with other public and private polls I’ve seen over the past week and a half. Furthermore, with Constantine leading by 12 points amongst voters who had already cast their ballot, Hutchison would need to carry late voters by a better than 14-point margin in order to win.
What accounts for this stunning reversal of fortune?
Women give a 3-to-2 margin to Constantine over Hutchison. The last poll had the candidates split in that category.
Hutchison has an overwhelming edge among Republicans and conservatives in the non-partisan race, while Constantine leads overwhelmingly among Democrats and liberals.
As it should be. As Democrats in general and women in particular learned more about the candidates, their positions, and their values, traditional Democratic voters came home to Constantine.
That in the end is the fatal flaw in the Rossi-esque tabula rasa strategy Hutchison pursued. Refusing to define yourself can only work if your opponent fails to define you for you.
Update: Here is a link to the current poll results.
I’m not much into the idea of publishing endorsements, because anybody who reads me regularly should already know where I stand on the races I cover, but I thought I’d make an exception to mention a race I haven’t written much about: the Seattle City Council contest between Robert Rosencrantz and Mike O’Brien.
Vote for O’Brien.
In the end, it really comes down to values. O’Brien is a progressive Democrat and Rosencrantz isn’t. And while I don’t object to having a couple Republicans on the council to mix things up, it’s not like the council is currently a haven for radical lefties… and it won’t get any more so with the imminent election of Sally Bagshaw.
I’m just sayin’…
Ted Van Dyk makes my job as a snarky blogger so much easier.
Susan Hutchison, through her role as a board member of the conservative Stewardship Foundation, has helped steer nearly $600,000 to anti-choice groups over the past few years. But since she refuses to actually answer Yes or No to questions regarding reproductive choice, I guess that’s something voters don’t need to hear about.
(Most dishonest campaign ever.)
That’s what Susan Hutchison has been running… the most dishonest local campaign ever. And to a large extent, the local media has been somewhat complicit.
Hutchison is a Republican, and Dow Constantine is a Democrat. That is obvious and indisputable. And yet when Hutchison denies her party identity she large goes unchallenged — this is a nonpartisan race, we’re told, so what does it matter? Meanwhile, when Constantine proudly claims his party identity, he’s abused by the likes of the Seattle Times editorial board.
The ironic thing is, despite all the grandstanding about this being a nonpartisan race, should Hutchison win, the Times and everybody else will trumpet this as a huge victory for Republicans and an even bigger defeat Democrats.
Like I said… the most dishonest campaign ever.
KING-5/SurveyUSA have one last poll in the field regarding the county executive race, and this time they’re asking about party identity… whether we identify Susan Hutchison as a Democrat or a Republican, and whether party affiliation makes a difference in determining our choice.
It’ll be interesting to see the results.
One of the things that irritates me most about Seattle Times editorial columnist Kate Riley is the way she writes so authoritatively about things she knows absolutely nothing about. For example…
But Constantine really stepped outside the lines of propriety, not for nastiness, but for violating the copyright of a revered institution, the nonprofit TVW, Washington’s version of CSPAN — and for refusing to cut it out. TVW has asked that it be taken down, and Constantine’s lawyers have refused. Constantine’s spokesman Sandeep Kaushik told seattlepi.com that the use is justified.
Riley is just flat out wrong about the basic legal facts. Once again, in utilizing clips from TVW, neither the Constantine campaign nor myself have violated TVW’s copyright. We may have used their material without their permission, and contrary to their stated policy, but we were totally, 100-percent within our legal rights to do so under the Fair Use doctrine of U.S. copyright law.
Indeed, in all their public statements and interviews, not even TVW has gone so far as to claim that the Constantine campaign has violated its copyright. In fact, TVW President & CEO Greg Lane himself appears to acknowledge Constantine’s legal right, even while abusing him for daring to exercise it, complaining to Publicola, “They’re hiding behind a fair use legal argument and ignoring the greater public interest.”
Hear that Kate? Lane is accusing Constantine of “hiding behind” copyright law, not violating it.
Which raises an interesting aside. The courts have previously determined that copyright holders must make a good faith effort to consider the Fair Use doctrine before issuing DMCA takedown notices. Thus if Lane acknowledges Constantine’s usage is Fair Use, then, under the DMCA TVW has legally perjured itself in issuing a takedown notice to YouTube. (The same would be true of the takedown notices TVW issued to YouTube and Vimeo regarding my videos). Huh.
Riley insists that Constantine should pull the ad and apologize, but if you ask me, it is Constantine who deserves the apology from TVW, after Lane’s organization knowingly issued a bad faith takedown notice in its efforts to enforce a policy it has no legal right to enforce.
And in fact personally, if I had the money to hire attorneys, that’s exactly the argument I’d be making in court Monday morning.
As usual, I’ll be dressed up in my scary Tim Eyman costume, trick or treating with my daughter, and frightening the neighborhood kids, but if you don’t have plans and are looking for a fun and productive way to celebrate the holiday, I suggest you check out this year’s Trick or Treat canvassing party thrown by the Washington Bus:
This year, we’re partnering with the Approve Referendum 71 campaign and the No on 1033 campaign to present Trick or Vote in both Seattle and Spokane. For the Seattle event, Trick or Voters are meeting up at the Old Rainier Cold Storage in Georgetown (5840 Airport Way S) at 2:00 for a brief training before heading out to all corners of the city to talk to voters about turning in their ballots, voting yes on Referendum 71 and against Initiative 1033. In Spokane, attendees will gather at the Community Building Warehouse (17 W Main Avenue) before fanning out across town.
And of course, there’s an afterparty. It’s going down at Old Rainier Cold Storage, with free food, drink (for those of age), music by Selector Tang, and dancing by everyone. All free, all ages, all good.
Have fun!
TVW is still playing their stupid little takedown notice game, now having my “Suzie Huckabee” video pulled from Vimeo, after first having it pulled from YouTube. Only this time their actions have resulted in all my videos being pulled from Vimeo, even those which consisted solely of footage I shot myself.
In response, I’ve filed a counter-notice with Vimeo, and have edited all my posts to include the embed from LiveLeak displayed above. But I doubt it will end here.
TVW’s copyright policy notwithstanding, they do not have the right to deny me permission to use clips in this manner under the Fair Use doctrine of U.S. copyright law. I assume their attorneys understand this, and thus I also assume that their continued actions constitute little more than an intentional effort to harass me into submission.
For example, just take a look at the statement TVW issued in demanding that the Constantine campaign pull a TV ad that also makes fair use of one of their clips:
The citizens of Washington trust TVW to provide unedited and unbiased access to public policy events. Editing and using our programming for political ads both violates that public trust and puts at tremendous risk the public’s access to these events.
Yesterday, I spoke directly to representatives of the Constantine campaign, requesting that the offending ad be pulled from the air immediately. This morning, the campaign’s lawyers responded that the Constantine campaign is refusing to abide by our request. We are disappointed with their response, which completely ignores the public interest and the tradition of respect maintained for TVW’s unique role.
Notice how they make the public policy argument, but not the legal one. That’s because there is no good legal argument for pulling the ads. And yet they continue to issue legal takedown notices to YouTube, Vimeo and other video hosting services pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Section 512, knowing full well that these videos are protected under U.S. copyright law as Fair Use.
Huh. One might reasonably argue that TVW has actually perjured itself in issuing these takedown notices. And given a pro bono attorney, that’s a legal argument I very well might make in a court of law.
Back in 2005, while investigating allegations of David Irons’ abusive behavior, I repeatedly contacted Councilmember Dow Constantine’s office to confirm reports that he had intervened on behalf of one such abused female staffer. Constantine and his staff refused to talk to me, on or off the record, despite the fact that Republican Irons was in the midst of what was then considered to be a tight race for King County Executive against Democratic incumbent Ron Sims.
Apparently, Councilmember Kathy Lambert isn’t nearly so collegial.
What exactly did Nick Licata do to piss off Seattle firefighters?
Democrats don’t endorse and campaign for Republicans. That means Brad Owen and Brian Sonntag are not Democrats. At least, not real ones.
Democratic constituency groups should keep that in mind come 2012.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!