Burying Us With Our Own Confusion

This video is an interesting mashup (combination) of the notorious 1984 Macintosh ad by Apple Computer and the race for the Democratic Party nomination for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. It's clever (especially the closing logo that reshape's Apple's older logo).

It's also an interesting stretch of copyright and fair use guidelines. "Fair Use" is a legal term that outlines conditions allowing people to copy someone else's work legally. In the United States, Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act sets allows for the use of copyrighted material "for certain purposes, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research" (Source: Yale University).

Of these six areas, the only one that I see as possibly relevant is "criticism" or possibly "comment." Yet, the video is advertises a viewpoint and, while exceptionally clever in execution (right down to the addition of the iPod to the runner), it's still "advertisement."

Now, I'm not a lawyer (though I could play one on T.V...honest) , but if I were one of the flies on the wall at Republican strategy sessions, I'd find a way to bring suit against whoever first uploaded the file and create a distraction about it, one that creates headlines obscuring the real problems with the current Administration. (You know the ones I mean: lies, private armies, wasted monies, cronyism, incompetence, videotape.) I'm sure Fox News would be all over the story, ready to paint both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as fools and incompetents.

I'm sure this ad was created by an Obama supporter and I applaud their creativity and execution. However, it's a little unnerving to see so much early focus on toppling rivals for the nomination, rather than a focus on toppling the current Administration. Speaking solely for myself, I would have preferred this particular mashup to use the current President's words rather than the former First Lady's.

But that's my preference. What's your's?