“You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” – Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan For the past several election cycles, a cottage industry of fact-checkers emerges from their pumpkin patches each fall to assess the credibility of candidates’ claims. One of most-quoted of these, FactCheck.org, is affiliated with my alma mater. These groups’ findings are not only cited by the media but are also used by partisans of both Presidential candidates. And while neither the press nor the candidates are free to plagiarize the articles produced by fact-checkers, the facts themselves are fair
Read moreIn anticipation of tonight’s debate, I’d like to discuss, from a non-partisan IP law perspective, something that came out of the first Presidential debate: the Big Bird ad. I think the ad and the Sesame Street folks’ response raised some interesting questions of fair use, parody and first amendment rights that are applicable to composers and performers. As we know, it started with a comment that Republican contender, Gov. Mitt Romney, made to the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS , about cutting federal funding for PBS programs, including Lehrer’s own NewsHour and Sesame Street. Mr. Romney specifically singled out Big
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