Is That Two Strikes For Mandelson? Labour Caught With Another Potentially Infringing Poster

Politics

from the watch-out... dept

You may recall a few weeks back that we wrote about how the Labour party in the UK had come under fire for a really bad campaign poster that portrayed an opposing candidate from the Conservative party as if he were a character in a BBC television program — photoshopping the candidate’s head onto the a promotional shot from the TV show. Labour ended up pulling the poster after the ad seemed to only help the competition — but also after some questioned whether or not Labour (the party in power that had drafted the infamous Digital Economy Bill) was infringing on copyrights of the TV show in using the image from the show. Eventually, Peter Mandelson, the guy who basically wrote the Digital Economy Bill and was its main champion, took “responsibility” for the poster.

So it’s a bit bizarre to hear that Labour and Mandelson have put out a second, quite similar, poster that appears to be just as questionable on the copyright front. Misterfricative writes in to alert us to a new controversy over yet another campaign poster involving the Conservative candidate photoshopped into an image from a BBC television program. Once again, the poster has been “withdrawn” over other aspects of the controversy, but it certainly looks like this should be Mandelson’s second strike, right? After all, these posters are supposedly his responsibility. If he wants to set a good example, perhaps he should cut off his own internet access. But I guess he shouldn’t worry. After all, as Mandelson himself pointed out, once kicked off, he can pay up in order to file an appeal.

Filed Under: infringement, peter mandelson, united kingdom