Fox News v. McCain [1]

Senator John McCain's presidential campaign broadcast an advertisement on television and on McCain's website [2] featuring an eighteen-second video clip excerpted from the GOP presidential debate that had been broadcast on the Fox News Channel the week before.

In the clip, McCain derides democratic rival Senator Hillary Clinton for attempting to earmark $1 million for a Woodstock Museum, commenting that he was "tied up at the time" (referring to the fact that the 1969 festival occurred during his detention in Hanoi as a prisoner of war). The Fox News logo is visible at the bottom left hand corner of the screen in the McCain advertisement.

The advertisement was posted on McCain's website, and was broadcast on television in New Hampshire and during a pre-game show before the World Series baseball game between the Red Sox and the Rockies on October 25, 2007.

Fox News faxed a letter to McCain's campaign on October 25 2007, alleging that the use of the footage infringed Fox News' exclusive rights under section 106 of the Copyright Act [3]. The letter demanded that the McCain campaign stop using the footage in any media, including on the Senator's website.

McCain's campaign has responded with a statement that the use of the short piece of footage constituted fair use and has refused to take the ad down from the Senator's website. Fox News has responded publicly that the use of the footage was not fair use because it was used for a "commercial purpose," namely fundraising.

The repurcussions of this dispute have been widely felt. Fox News sent letters to other Republican presidential hopefuls spelling out its policy that debate footage cannot be used in political advertisements. This has drawn sharp criticism from both ends of the political spectrum, including left-leaning blog Moveon.org [4] and right-leaning blog Redstate.com [5]. Critics point out that NBC, CNN and ABC have agreed to make their debate footage available for re-publication.