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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Berkeley nonprofit wants anti-Obama ad pulled (Weather Underground) A Berkeley nonprofit has demanded that a conservative political group stop airing a television ad that seeks to tie Barack Obama to a 1960s radical, claiming the ad uses copyrighted footage from a documentary film without permission. A lawyer for the Free History Project, which produced the Academy Award-nominated 2002 documentary "The Weather Underground," sent a cease-and-desist letter Monday to the Florida-based American Issues Project, which created the ad and has bought air time for it in the presidential battleground states of Michigan and Ohio. The ad notes that the Weather Underground, a radical group, bombed the U.S. Capitol and other sites in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and accuses Obama of being a friend and political protégé of Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers during the late 1990s. "Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?" the ad asks. Ayers, who has never been convicted of a crime, is now a University of Illinois education professor and has been active in Chicago politics for years. Obama has characterized him as little more than an acquaintance. "(W)ithout requesting permission to do so, you took footage of William Ayers from 'The Weather Underground' and used it in the advertisement," John Keker, a lawyer for the Berkeley nonprofit, wrote Monday, demanding that the ad be withdrawn from television and the group's Web site. "You have thus willfully violated The Free History Project's intellectual property rights." AIP counsel Cleta Mitchell wrote back Tuesday, insisting, "it is apparent that any use is within the parameters of the doctrine of 'fair use' of publicly available materials and is protected by that doctrine in accordance with federal law." Keker associate Brook Dooley later Tuesday said the Free History Project and its lawyers are "trying to decide how to proceed." "... Our position is that the core of fair use is in commenting on copyrighted material and transforming copyrighted material, and we don't think that's happened here. We think they've just flat-out taken it." The Obama campaign has asked the Justice Department to probe whether the AIP violated federal rules barring tax-exempt political groups from advocating a candidate's election or defeat; the campaign also has urged television stations to reject the ad as untruthful. Dooley said Keker informed Obama's campaign he was sending the letter, "but the Free History Project doesn't view this through a partisan political lens. Their interest is in protecting their copyrighted material, period." AIP board member Ed Martin of St. Louis said Tuesday he's confident the group has broken no rules and violated no copyrights, and he decried efforts to "stop this expression of free speech." AIP's only other board member is Ed Failor Jr. of Iowa, who was a paid consultant for John McCain's campaign last year; Martin said neither he nor Failor have any ties to McCain's camp now. "We know the rules," Martin said. "We know the way these things work." The Los Angeles Times this week reported that almost $2.8 million to air the ad was put up by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who had helped bankroll the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" attacks on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Reach Josh Richman at 510-208-6428 or jrichman@bayareanewsgroup.com. Read the Political Blotter at www.ibabuzz.com/politics.
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