A federal judge ruled that John McCain can be sued for his Ohio campaign’s use of a Jackson Browne song in a Web video. Browne objected to his involuntary endorsement of McCain’s campaign. McCain’s campaign was disappointed that the judge failed to dismiss the suit, saying that the use of the song was protected speech under California’s anti-SLAPP stature. -DB
The Washington Post
Feb. 23, 2009
By Mary Ann Akers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is not out of the woods on one pending legal matter involving his presidential campaign.
A federal district court in Los Angeles over the weekend declined to dismiss singer Jackson Browne’s lawsuit against the senator and the Republican National Committee for the unauthorized use of his song “Running On Empty” in a political Web video.
Browne, an outspoken liberal, sued McCain, the RNC and the Ohio Republican Party for copyright infringement last August after the state party used his famous song in an online video promoting McCain’s presidential candidacy.
The rocker’s attorney, Lawrence Iser, says the court’s decision this past weekend is a “solid victory for songwriters and performers and reflects an affirmation of their intellectual property rights and their freedom from being conscripted as involuntary endorsers of political candidates and campaign messages.”
He adds, “We look forward to presenting Jackson Browne’s case to the jury.”
The McCain campaign also has released a statement — a very legalistically worded one — even though Browne’s lawsuit was aimed at McCain himself, not his campaign.
“The McCain campaign is disappointed that the Court declined to dismiss Jackson Browne’s suit about the Ohio Republican Party’s political video, despite the fact that the Court found that Browne’s claims arise out of protected speech activity under California’s Anti-SLAPP statute and that the evidence was undisputed that Senator McCain ‘played no part in the creation or dissemination’ of the video,” reads the statement issued by the McCain campaign’s outside counsel, Lincoln Bandlow.
Ironically, even though it was the Ohio Republican Party that made the online ad, the L.A. judge dismissed Browne’s suit against the Ohio state party while declining to dismiss the RNC’s and McCain’s motions to dismiss the copyright suit, as Copyrights and Campaigns blogger Ben Sheffner notes.
For his party, McCain has claimed to be clueless about any video using Jackson Brown’s song.
The senator filed a declaration last summer in response Browne’s lawsuit claiming, “I was not involved at all in any way in the writing, creation, production, distribution, or dissemination of the video, nor do I have any knowledge whatsoever of how this video was written, created, produced, distributed or disseminated or who was involved in any aspect of the writing, creation, production, distribution or dissemination of the video. I was completely unaware that this video even existed until I was informed of it after this lawsuit was filed.”
Odds are extremely long that this case will ever go to trial. But keep hope alive, courtroom thrill seekers, for a Jackson Browne v. John McCain showdown.