Posted on 11/20/2008 12:27:45 PM PST by Oyarsa
John McCain fights back vs. Jackson Browne Senator seeks damages, claims singer's lawsuit chilled free speech By Eriq Gardner Hollywood Reporter updated 8:10 a.m. CT, Thurs., Nov. 20, 2008 LOS ANGELES - John McCain may have lost the presidential election to Barack Obama, but his campaign seems absolutely determined not to lose to Jackson Browne.
The singer/songwriter sued McCain in August after the Republican candidate for the highest office in the land used his song, “Running on Empty,” in a campaign commercial that targeted Obama’s energy plan. At the time, many didn’t take the legal threat very seriously, but based on two motions filed this week in U.S. District Court in California, the McCain campaign sure does.
Represented by attorney Lincoln Bandlow at Spillane Shaeffer, McCain has filed two 20-page motions.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Jackson Boring - Running Out of Ideas.
Go fade away John. Your time is long over.
McCain SLAPP’s Jackson Browne.
And there’s no bigger defender of free speech than John McCain.
I ready for McCain to just go away. If he had any decency he would retire and go back to Arizona and let us try to repair what his lame ass policies have wrought.
McCain is truly pathetic.
So this is where donations to the McCain campaign are going - to fund nuisance suits that have no chance of success.
More and more I look immediately to the keywords for “humor”. Sadly I see it less than I would hope.
This probably won’t go anywhere. Song rights are not owned by the artist. They are owned by the publisher, and if the publisher gave the McCain campaign the rights to use the song, JB is SOL.
That is only fitting in that Browne was rumored to have slapped around his then girlfriend Daryl Hannah. Tough guy the Jackson, I wonder how he would have held up as a POW?
LOL! Love that! Good one for McCain!
One would think so, but there is a concept in IP law known as "moral rights" that an artists original vision (blah, blah) cannot be thwarted. Yep, it comes from French law - not widely accepted in US.
Moral rights were used as an argument in lawsuit against Ted Turner when he colorized old black & White movies. I forget how that lawsuit came out...
an anti-SLAPP motion, which is typically used by defendants as a way to seek monetary damages after a plaintiff has subjected a defendant to a lawsuit meant to chill free speech.
Artists claiming a right to royalties for use of their artistic work are not "chilling free speech," no matter how you slice it. McCain is free to write his own songs, or pay the artist (or claim fair use) for use of the artist's work. If McCain doesn't like the way copyright laws function, then as a Senator, he is in a powerful position to propose revisions. But this motion of his is a grandstanding joke - and on reflection, it's fitting as all getout for one of the bigger jokers on the political scene.
He won!
It’s like that episode of South Park, Manbearpig.
I believe Turner won those lawsuits, but the people suing him made such a public stink that Turner compromised.gave in.
Someone should sue McAmnesty for being weak on illegal alien amnesty...
Of course that suit will go nowhere...much like his suit on Browne
This suit will be used as more fodder for liberals to attack Republicans
But in this instance, at least according to McCain, McCain DID have a blanket license to use those songs in the campaign. According to McCain, JB, like most artists, personally does not own the performance rights to the songs JB wrote; those belong to a publishing and licensing firm to which JB sold them — for money.
Did McCain do an illegal download. I thought he couldn’t use a computer.
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