Canadian PM Copies Campaign Commercial, Doesn't License Hockey Clips (original) (raw)

While the latest attempt at putting forth new copyright laws in Canada didn’t survive, I always find it amusing when politicians pushing for stricter copyright laws get caught breaking copyright law. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was already being talked about after it came to light that he appeared to have done a pretty close copy of a campaign ad from US Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. You can see both ads below:

However, as Rob Hyndman alerts us, now some have discovered that Harper did not properly license the video clips he used of a hockey match between Canada and the Soviet Union in 1972.

Horst Ficel, a partner in the firm, says that Hockey Canada granted the players the rights to all the marketing of the series in the mid-1990s. Today, a committee with player representatives decides who can license the footage.

Ficel is busy fielding requests for permission to use the clips to mark the upcoming 40th anniversary of the historic series.

But decidedly not among those requesting permission was the Conservative Party of Canada, Ficel said..

“It’s definitely not approved by me. It’s not approved by the committee.”

He says the committee is careful to avoid anything that might be considered political.

Now, personally, I think this should be “fair use,” but Canada (notoriously) has no fair use. It does have a more limited concept of “fair dealing,” but (and I’m certainly not an expert in Canadian copyright law), it’s not clear if political commercials are covered by Canada’s fair dealing provisions. The fair dealing provisions focus on “research, private study, criticism, review, or news reporting,” and I don’t see how political ads match any of those.

Filed Under: canada, commercial, stephen harper, tim pawlenty