ERNEST MILLER suggests that presidential campaign ads shouldn’t be copyrightable:

Unbelievable sums of money have been and will be spent on television campaign commercials. They are the heart and sole of the modern campaign. They are the main reason campaign contributions play such an important role in our democracy. Until now, the ability to create campaign commercials has been the preserve of highly paid election consultants and strictly controlled by the candidates and parties themselves. However, the internet and computing revolutions are changing this. As the MoveOn contest proved, amateurs are perfectly capable of creating compelling campaign advertising. Why shouldn’t they have the chance? Why shouldn’t these materials be free to quote from? Isn’t this what democracy and free speech is about? Of course, it may be that the parties and candidates don’t really believe in free speech. . . .

For the works in the public domain there is clearly no problem. In fact, I’m not sure why any of these commercials are copyrighted anyway. After all, I seem to recall that tax dollars paid for at least a portion of many of those ads. And even if there is copyright, the holders of those copyrights should be asked why they won’t permit licensing under one of the Creative Commons licenses.

I agree on all counts. Perhaps we need legislation providing that any candidate who accepts public funds must agree to permit such licensing.

UPDATE: It said “Ernest Svenson” above before. My fault. Sorry — a brain-burp.