HorsesAss.Org

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!

And Go Phillies!

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.

It is fashionable around these parts to criticize Seattle Rep. Jim McDermott as a do-nothing congressman who fails to bring home the bacon (you know, unlike Washington’s paragon of something, Rep. Norm Dicks). So I guess I shouldn’t expect our local media to break with the meme by covering the active role McDermott’s played in health reform negotiations, including the four key provisions he authored in the House version of the bill.

I’ve long had a reputation as a bit of a muckraker, and I’ve never been shy about aiming low if that’s where the facts lead me. But unlike some bloggers, I’ve generally refrained from breaking stories of personal scandal without being firmly backed up by say, 62 pages of documentation, or, you know, the first-hand testimony of the subject’s mother.

But if the other side wants to lower both the threshold and the standard, I may just have to lower mine.

Apparently $3.2 billion in tax incentives over 20 years and everything else the state has forked over isn’t good enough.

This is partly about neoliberal corporate executives chasing non-union low wages, as Charles Mudede alluded to at Slog yesterday, but it’s also an attack on unionism itself. This isn’t about economics, it’s about an ideology that long ago concluded the very existence of unions is an affront. Face it, there are many, many people in our society who would gladly abolish unions if they could, but since they can’t, the next best thing is to create conditions where forming unions is next to impossible and put an Orwellian moniker like “right to work” on them.

So while the taxpayers of Washington state got to pay and pay and pay in a somewhat futile attempt to appease Boeing, now the citizens of South Carolina get to pay and pay and pay. Hell, we’ll all probably wind up paying still, because Republicans and the bidness guys and gals are already preparing to use this as an attack issue, claiming without any credibility that Washington state is somehow a bad place to do business, when numerous measures rank us fairly high. Plus we’ll all get to continue to pay for military work done by Boeing. (Earth to powerful US Senators, come in US Senators…)

Notice that in this “free market” economy, the transfer of wealth is from regular people to giant corporations, their shareholders and officers, and that tax dollars are extorted from all of us to make it so. Then when the system nearly crushes everyone and a neoliberal has to resort to extraordinary means to avert a world-wide cliff dive, he is attacked as an authoritarian tyrant in order to keep the peasants divided, even as he and his predecessor fork over billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up the decayed neoliberal order. It’s “socialism” if regular people get routine medical care, but it’s “free market” economics if corporations are not only awarded huge profits but literally paid off.

Capital, of course, is prized in our system above all else. Land, ie property and the means of production, also enjoys a high status. Labor is semi-disposable, and nothing infuriates neoliberals like workers who don’t realize their place in the pecking order. Boeing is putting labor in its place, both out of pique and as a warning to anyone who would challenge the existing order of things.

I’m quite certain skilled politicians instinctively understand the situation, and the interesting question is: now what? Boeing supposedly will still have a large presence in the state, and it needs a transition time to get the South Carolina facility up and running.

Since one of Boeing’s complaints is a lack of qualified engineers in Washington state, what say they pitch in now and help offset those massive tuition increases from last session? Surely Boeing won’t need all of that $3.2 billion in tax incentives over the next fifteen years or so, seeing as the people of South Carolina are being so generous.

Since 2004, retired Woodinville investment banker Michael Dunmire has given at least $2,747,193.71 to Tim Eyman and his various initiatives.

That’s nearly half a million dollars a year.

Over the past six years Dunmire’s impressive bank account has provided the bulk of the money used to buy the signatures necessary to get Eyman’s initiatives on the ballot, and the bulk of Eyman’s personal compensation. Without the largesse of this one man, none of Eyman’s recent initiatives would have qualified for the ballot.

Is that the citizens initiative process the populist framers of our state constitution imagined?

I don’t think so.

Talk of doing away with the initiative process is a nonstarter; even significant reforms would require a constitutional amendment, and nobody ever wins an election asking for less democracy. But I do have one idea that might return the initiative process closer to its populist roots, and just may be constitutional in the process: impose contribution limits on the signature gathering portion of the campaign.

The courts have been clear that the state cannot impose contribution limits on issues, as that would interfere with free speech, but as far as I know, separating the mechanics of collecting signatures from the messaging, while imposing contribution limits on the former but not the latter, has never been attempted.

Perhaps the courts would not allow this either; I don’t know, and perhaps folks with more expertise in this aspect of the law could chime in with their opinion. But at the very least such an effort at reform would create a much needed public discussion of whether our democracy is served by making the initiative process the private playground of wealthy individuals and powerful special interest groups.

TVW is playing their stupid little takedown notice games again, and this time I was prepared.

About an hour ago I received notice from YouTube that they had disable my “Suzie Huckabee” video at the request of TVW, claiming I had violated their copyright.  Yeah, well, so I quickly updated the original post by replacing the YouTube embed with one from Vimeo; you can view it at the top of this post as well.

I have also filed a counter-notice with YouTube, and fully expect the video to be re-enabled. If TVW wants to take this any further, I guess they’re welcome to sue me, but I think they know damn well that I have the law on my side. And of course I’m talking about the Fair Use doctrine.

My 2 minute and 16 second video includes a total of 26 seconds of copyrighted material excerpted from over 1 hour and 40 minutes of TVW streaming video. The clips are used to fact check and contrast Susan Hutchison’s claims during a KCTS debate with her statements during a Washington Policy Center annual dinner, a journalistic critique that simply would not be possible without the use of these clips.

TVW’s copyright notice may be broad and restrictive, expressly prohibiting both modification of their material and its use for commercial or political purposes, but its non-binding disclaimer does not revoke the right to fair use granted to the public over all copyrighted works. And there’s no doubt in my mind that my video does constitute fair use.

Now, I fully appreciate the purpose of TVW’s overly restrictive copyright policy, and as such I try to make use of their embedding tools whenever possible, and commend them for making these tools more functional for bloggers.  TVW’s mission is to provide a public record of public events, and I can’t argue with their concern that using their material as I have might dissuade some people from allowing TVW to record their events.  But… well… too bad.

Hutchison said what she said, in a public venue, on a taxpayer funded government channel, and I have every right to use these clips in the manner above. It may make TVW’s job more difficult, but that’s not my problem, and… nobody said democracy was gonna be easy.

NOTE:
TVW also apparently had the YouTube of Dow Constantine’s new ad pulled too (it uses a different TVW clip), so I replaced the video in the post below to one from Vimeo as well.

UPDATE:
TVW has apparently had my Vimeo video pulled, so I’ve replaced the embed with one from LiveLeak. I’m willing to play this game all day, if that’s what they want.

It was Hutchison who needed to effectively go negative if she had a hope of winning this race, and yet it is Constantine who has come up with the most devastatingly effective ad. I guess that’s because there are more truly negative things to say about Hutchison than about Constantine.

UPDATE:
Fucking TVW… they’re playing their takedown notice game again, so I had to replace the YouTube video with one from Vimeo. More on this later.

So, um… apart from Tim Eyman, the knee-jerk anti-tax Farm Bureau, and the Washington State Republican Party central committee, has anybody else actually endorsed Initiative 1033?

The reliably conservative Washington Association Realtors opposes the initiative. The equally conservative Association of Washington Business couldn’t bring itself to take a position. And now the so-called Mainstream Republicans have come out in opposition to I-1033:

“As Republicans from communities all over Washington State, we believe there should be reasonable limits on government spending. However, Initiative 1033 proposes an unreasonable and unworkable limit that punishes local governments, locks in funding cuts for law enforcement, schools and other important services, and weakens the ability of our communities to invest in projects that would help attract or retain jobs in our state. We ask you vote No on Initiative 1033 and reject Tim Eyman’s ill conceived and unreasonable proposal that will make already tough times worse in our state and our communities.”

Signing the statement were former governor and US senator Dan Evans, former US senator Slade Gorton, former state Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland, former congressman Sid Morrison, and even GOP moneybags John Stanton.

And in favor of I-1033…? Anybody? I’m just wondering.