Steve Shannon’s campaign seems to not care about fair use [1], copying a Roanoke Times article [2] in its entirety and reproducing it on his website [3]. While there is nothing wrong with quoting and linking to news articles (it’s the very backbone of most blogs), ripping an entire article without permission is a big no-no. Even we get that. Maybe we’re getting an insight on Shannon’s stance on how he’d stand up for intellectual propery rights as Attorney General.
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that Bill Bolling’s campaign has also made the same offense, citing an article from WCPVA [4] in its entirety [5].
Bolling’s site does a better job of conveying the source which not only gives credit where it is due but also better impresses upon the reader that this is from an OUTSIDE source and not just an in house observation of awesome – which is smart use of a campaign website.
But on fair use it leads to the question of whether or not political campaigns are held to a different standard concerning fair use than regular bloggers or even Google [5]?
Perhaps an Attorney General nominee could explain.