Dem Jeanette Rishell campaign seeks to squash political speech?

Greg Letiecq at Black Velvet Bruce Li must have hit a nerve when his video questioning the Jeanette Rishell campaign caused the campaign to censor his YouTube video criticizing the candidate.

Today a press release from Mr. Letiecq exposed the issue:

Manassas, Virginia: The campaign of Jeanette Rishell, a candidate running for the 50th District House of Delegates in Virginia has filed a copyright infringement claim with YouTube regarding a video created by local blogger Greg Letiecq on July 29th. The video criticizes her selection of a campaign manager and uses short clips from her own campaign videos to demonstrate the hypocrisy of claiming to support family values, but hiring someone to represent her campaign who posted pictures of used condoms on her public Facebook page, written articles advocating homosexual relationships, and had supported including hard-core pornography videos in the collection of the library at Rochester University.

“YouTube maintains a policy of disabling video content after receiving any complaints regarding copyright infringement, so the videos are currently unavailable on YouTube” said Letiecq, the blogger who operates the Black Velvet Bruce Li blog. “It is unprecedented for a political campaign to allege copyright infringement when someone uses short clips of their campaign videos, and this is a clear effort to stifle criticism of her bad judgment by misusing the law.”

Copyright law provides limited use of the material of others under the “fair use doctrine,” particularly when such use is essential for parody, criticism or educational purposes and is limited to the minimum portion of the original work necessary. Recently, a similar “fair use” issue involving a video by the National Organization for Marriage and contested by Perez Hilton was resolved by YouTube in favor of the “fair use” of Perez Hilton's statements. Using short clips of a video for permitted purposes, even without authorization, is permissible "fair use" under Title 17 Section 107 of the United States Code.

Ben Tribbett, the blogger behind “Not Larry Sabato” called the Rishell campaign's actions “total insanity” in a post late on July 29th he decided to make the video available for download from his own servers so they could evaluate the claims of the Rishell campaign themselves. The attempt to misuse copyright law in an effort to stifle free political speech has failed because of a bipartisan effort by Virginia bloggers to stand up for free political speech.

RESOURCES:
* Electronic Frontier Foundation FAQ on “fair use”
* Copyrights and Campaigns Blog on National Organization For Marriage and Perez Hilton
* Video “Jeanette Rishell and Used Condom Girl"

Greg Letiecq & the recording studio at RPV Convention

Greg Letiecq (right) works the controls at recording studio.

Shaun Kenney interviews Ken Cuccinelli.

The New Media setup for the 2009 Republican Party of Virginia Convention over the weekend included a recording studio, manned by Greg Letiecq from Black Velvet Bruce Li blog, that provided a raised platform overlooking the convention floor for interviews with candidates, bloggers, and others.

Greg has written about it, complete with photos, over at Black Velvet Bruce Li in his post, "RPV embraces new media:"

The convention of the Republican Party of Virginia was an awesome event, although I had little time to take much of it in. The RPV New Media Committee through sponsorship from the House Republican Caucus engaged me in streaming the convention live on ustream as well as running a mini-studio on the floor of the convention. Bloggers used that studio to interview a wide variety of Republican elected officials and candidates with the convention floor and stage as a backdrop, which allowed for some pretty awesome video footage. It kept me awfully busy, so I missed a lot of what was happening, but the results of the effort are tremendous.

Read his post to see how the set up was utilized to enhance the Republican message, promote candidates, interview electeds, and provide yet another tool for bloggers in the ever-widening field of New Media.

Our thanks to Greg who did a fantastic job. The bar has been set very high....

Photos by SWAC Girl
Lynn Mitchell
May 29-30, 2009

Dave Mastio & Black Velvet Bruce Li in Washington Post article

A Washington Post article that was reprinted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted Dave Mastio of BlogNetNews talking about the most influential blogs in the Virginia blogosphere.

Dave, who keeps track of over 200 political blogs in Virginia, cited Black Velvet Bruce Li as the most influential conservative blog in Northern Virginia, and said it's a sign of success when blogs are mimicked by others:

"In the blogosphere, attention is the coin of the realm. Blogs survive on controversy ..."

Greg Letiecq, aka Black Velvet Bruce Li, has seen a copycat blog sprout up to mock his strong stand against illegal immigration. He is not deterred. Read the entire article.