Liberals spooked by fax?

When the Liberals received a misdialed fax from the Environment Minister’s office and the subsequently faxed threatening letter suggesting that the original document contained sensitive market information, one wonders if the Grits would have made more of the incident if the Conservatives hadn’t hit back so hard and successfully on the Holland/Jennings boxes incident which backfired on that party highlighting Liberal arrogance when it comes to sensitive information…

Liberals in violation of US Copyright Act

The famous YouTube video with a close up shot of a the shipping label on the boxes “returned” to the PMO by Mark Holland and Marlene Jennings was taken down from the popular video hosting website after the user “liberalvideo” made a copyright claim. YouTube user “liberalvideo” is of course the Liberal OLO and their muscling of content critical to their party sets a chilling precedent in this country.

Of course, the video itself was based upon footage gathered by the Liberal Party from their original video. Since the claimant to the copyright was “liberalvideo”, we can assume that “liberalvideo” is in fact the Liberal OLO.

Anyway. The derivative video produced (with the shipping label) constitutes fair use of the material and may even be classified as a parody of the original. Point is, there is no copyright violation.

This may spell trouble for the Liberal Party as they are in violation of the US Copyright Act. Section 512(f) states:

512. Limitations on liability relating to material online

(f) Misrepresentations. – Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section –

(1) that material or activity is infringing, or

(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,

shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

Liberals have expressed to me that the removal of the video and copyright claim was shortsighted and “dumb”.

The video that the Liberals don’t want you to see

According to ThePolitic.com, YouTube user “liberalvideo” has complained to Youtube and had the now famous “shipping label” video removed because of a trumped up and false “copyright claim by liberalvideo”. I posted about the video here (the YouTube video on that post is now broken). Obviously, “liberalvideo” is the Liberal OLO. Why are the Liberals only now concerned about property rights? This is somewhat ironic given that this scandal is based upon a massive violation of Conservative property rights by Liberals. I present the original video below, from a “journalistic perspective” (fair use/dealings) since this story (and now, the cover-up) is newsworthy. The video is hosted at Blogging Tories, far from Liberal reach and manipulation. The “shipping label” video will remain there, as an archive, so that future generations may appreciate and study this dreadful chapter of Canadian politics. It will become known as the “Holland/Jennings Incident”.

The forbidden video:

What’s one of the cardinal rules of politics? Cover-ups make the news even bigger.

Sorry Stéphane, you might think that this is unfair, but it’s politics.