One day before the election that will decide the fate of humanity (right?), Chris Christie is busy with pesky copyright issues. It started last night when HuffPo called him out for an ad that swiped footage from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Then they called Michael Palin, who was not pleased: “He’s clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after — not that of Michael Palin.” Christie’s campaign quickly scrubbed the ad from its site and removed it from YouTube. Catastrophe averted.
Until today, when industrious bloggers found a different Christie ad that used stolen stock footage. How could a viewer possibly figure that out? Watermarks, of course. Again, the video was taken down. The campaign bought rights to the footage and then restored it, watermarks and all.
This isn’t really the kind of behavior one would expect from someone who presumably knows copyright law, but Christie probably just figured that if Jon Corzine can make ill-conceived ads, he can too.
Did Christie Campaign Violate Copyright Law, Steal Stock Video? [TPM]
