Canadian Tories argued for stronger copyright laws, but appropriate copyright when it suits them

The Canadian Conservative party is in trouble for appropriating copyrighted news-video for a web app that lets supporters make their own campaign ads. It's significant because this is the party that tried — through the now-dead Canadian DMCA — to bring in copyright laws that would raise the penalties for this sort of appropriation.

But you know what? As much as I dislike the Tories and as much as I appreciate the irony (as a friend used to say to the anti-lyrics-censorship, pro-copyright-censorship people in the record industry, "I know you love free speech, I just wish you'd share it with the rest of us!"), I think that they should be allowed to do this without copyright hassles.

Look: they're engaged in political speech, using news-footage to criticize politicians. Whether it's "out of context" or not (surely a subjective matter), this should be a slam-dunk. No copyright system should restrict quotation on news in the pursuit of political speech — the purposes of copyrights — encouraging creativity, encouraging investment — are not undermined by political commercials.

This is why we fought against the Canadian DMCA after all: because we wanted Canadians to have the right to express themselves with a minimum of locks and fears. If you only support free expression for people who agree with you, you don't support it at all.

Some of the clips might look familiar. They have been taken from an Agenda interview with Stephane Dion, snapped off the context and put them to work. And that is where an ad like this can cause trouble. Now the Conservatives are going to have to deal with the embarrassment of being told to take the clips down (sort of like when Heart told Sarah Palin to stop playing Barracuda at her rallies).

That Conservative site steps in it again, this time dragging the Agenda along

(Thanks, Mike!)