Just saw this over on Joe.My.God. — an explanation for NOM’s ability to have the YouTube clips of Rachel Maddow featuring the behind-the-scenes footage of “The Gathering Storm” pulled for copyright infringement. And, you know what? I was kinda right! Here’s the explanation that was given by YouTube to one of the users who had his Maddow clips pulled:
The copyrighted work at issue is an audition tape produced by the National Organization for Marriage for the NOM video “A Gathering Storm.” Some of the actors who appear on the audition video were not selected for the final video, and thus have not signed releases for the distribution of their likeness. The audition video is included as part of the MSNBC broadcast, and can be identified by the green background.
Okay, so I was partly right. Let me half-brag for a moment.
This morning I wrote Rachel Maddow On NOM’s Copyright Claims To Her Show — Is NOM Right? because I thought that, well, NOM had a right to pull anything that featured their copyrighted material because the copyrighted material in question couldn’t reasonably, to my thinking, fall under “Fair Use.”
And a reader commented that he thought the information was newsworthy and did fall under “Fair Use.”
But that got me thinking even more, and I started wondering about the actors especially, so I responded — “But here’s the thing, and I’m not a lawyer either: Does showing a clip of actors’ auditions from a commercial they were featured in fall under “Fair Use?” Actors are used in commercials all the time, so that can’t be especially newsworthy. And, does showing an actor’s audition violate any of the actor’s rights?
Let me bask for a moment while it lasts because in about 10 minutes I am probably going to find out that YouTube was, indeed, wrong to have pulled the clips!
This just feel so . . . sticky. We need a lawyer!
14. April 2009 at 6:26 pm
So now we’re getting into a first amendment issue?
That argument is not going to work. Without dwelling too much into it, I can point towards thousands of people who have had their rights outweighed by the so called people’s right to know..
As such, the people, in this case you and me, have the right to know that actors were used as part of anti-gay propaganda campaign and the media is entitled to report on it.
14. April 2009 at 9:07 pm
I agree with you 100% We absolutely needed to know that these were actors being used.
The thing is that we didn’t need to see the video clips to get that bit of information, and if the actors in the commercial hadn’t signed release forms then, as Joe said, they could have sued NOM. Even with the ads pulled, we still have the information (that was available even without the leaked audition tapes) that actors were used in the ads.
14. April 2009 at 11:54 pm
Then let’s assume for the time being that the tapes were posted online at a place or site online unsecured whereupon someone happened upon them and submitted them to the HRC.
Then the error would be from the person who carelessly posted the videos online. The NOM actors are certainly entitled to being mad about the situation, however for YouTube to suggest that there’s a contractual matter at hand, that’s bullshit.
I would propose that YouTube has far better things to worry about than a bunch of third rate actors who chose to audition for an anti-gay ad.
15. April 2009 at 9:06 am
You know what just occurred to me? I wonder if all of the actors knew they were auditioning for an anti-gay ad?
15. April 2009 at 6:32 pm
Given the script, I believe they did. I guess the question then is whether they were indeed actors or volunteers.