CBC loses lawsuit against Tories while wasting your money
CBC’s biased lawsuit against the Conservative Party of Canada has been dismissed by the Federal Court with the state broadcaster likely being on the hook for expenses. The lawsuit was launched over the use of CBC video in ads paid for by the Conservatives during the last election.
With just about 10 days to go in the last election campaign, our esteemed state broadcaster showed their total lack of objectivity by launching a lawsuit against the Conservatives. Nothing like being a player in the game where you are supposed to be a neutral observer.
To make matters worse, CBC listed their then lead anchor Rosemary Barton and reporter John Paul Tasker as applicants in the court filing, something they later withdrew.
The state broadcaster’s claim was that by using a total of 30 seconds of video material from CBC in a one-minute, 46-second online ad and by using video clips for Tweets put up during a leader’s debate, the Conservatives have “taken” CBC’s work without permission. The Conservatives responded, as they have in the past, that they were working under the “fair dealings” provision of Canada’s copyright act and their actions were protected.
The ads in question also contained material from CTV, CityTV and Global but only CBC launched a lawsuit against the Conservatives. They did this, even though they had been warned in the past against doing so.
In 2014, CBC was up in arms over the Conservatives using news clips in ads to criticize Justin Trudeau and the Liberals when they were in opposition. Internal emails show that CBC executives tried unsuccessfully to get other private broadcasters to band together to stop the use of news clips in ads.
Those emails also show CBC’s own team was warning against such an approach.
“Under existing policies, the mere existence of broadcaster material is not grounds for rejection of an advertisement,” wrote Steven Guiton, then CBC’s Chief Regulatory Officer.
Elections Canada had even stated that the use of broadcast news material in an ad is not a violation of copyright.
“If a news clip is relatively short and is not a substantial part of the audiovisual work from which it was taken, the broadcast of the news clip in a political ad would not infringe the copyright of the owner of the audiovisual work and would not require the permission of that owner to be broadcast,” the Elections Canada Broadcasting Guidelines state.
It’s no surprise then, that after considering all the arguments, after comparisons to both Monty Python and Sports Bloopers videos, Justice Michael Phelan found against CBC.
“Weighing all these factors, the Court concludes that the Respondents’ use of the CBC Works was, on these facts, fair,” Justice Phelan wrote.
Not good enough for CBC, though, they may still appeal this court ruling.
“From the beginning, our objective has been to protect the trust Canadians have in the independence of their public broadcaster. We believe that misusing journalistic content and footage out of context in partisan political videos undermines that trust,” spokesperson Leon Mar said via email.
What undermines trust in CBC is that it poses as a neutral media observer when it has fully transformed into an arm of the Liberal Party. CBC would earn more respect from the millions of Canadians who currently refuse to watch them if they would admit their political bias.
The Conservatives said that they welcome the ruling as a victory.
“This decision is a clear win for democracy. It will serve to enhance the freedom of political expression – a significant component of a healthy democracy,” the Conservatives said in a statement.
“As the court said, ‘one of the most powerful techniques in any advocacy is to turn an opponent’s works and actions back on them. And one of the fastest and easiest techniques is to use video and audio excerpts to convey that message.'”
No government should try to stop such expression, especially not our tax-funded state broadcaster.
CBC’s biased lawsuit against the Conservative Party of Canada has been dismissed by the Federal Court.
torontosun.com
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. (and they care even less about the terb righties‘ opinion...LOL...stick to Breitbart and InfoWars)
