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Want to know what is on our minds? Find blog posts written here, by the City Club staff, members, and partners. Every week you can find a new edition of #FreeSpeech in the News — a collection of related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century that’s making the news. You’ll also find takes on current events, past forums, and issues surrounding Northeast Ohio. Read on for all things City Club.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2018

No, It’s Not OK for You to Use Our Content for Your Political Ad.

Dan Moulthrop, Chief Executive Officer, The City Club of Cleveland

We're entering another political campaign season, which seems like a good time to just say this very publicly: You shouldn't use our content for your negative political ad. I know it's tempting. There's such good, clean footage of that candidate or surrogate, and it would just work so well in that spot. Just don't. Please. You're bigger than that.

There are two basic points to consider here—what's legal and what's right. I'm not an attorney, so I'm going to start with what's right.

One of the most important roles the City Club plays for our community, our state, and our nation is that we put public officials and aspiring leaders in direct communication with the public they serve. Look around the community and you realize in short order that there's no other place doing what we do. For the price of lunch, you can be in the room with a sitting U.S. senator, your mayor, or the county executive, and when the time comes, you can ask whatever you want. And that thing that we have here—a place devoted to putting those who serve in direct dialogue with the public they serve—that's kind of sacred for those of us who love our democracy. We take pains to safeguard this place against incivility and the other degrading impulses of politics. If you came to any of the 16 forums when we presented primary candidates for governor, you would have heard me say that if you're here as a tracker, put your camera away, and if we see you with it out, we're going to ask you to leave. We do that because we believe having a place devoted to civil, civic discourse where candidates can have an authentic, open dialogue with constituents is valuable to the community and helps make our republic a bit stronger.

In a world with a diminishing number of places that prize civility and authenticity in political discourse, we're all called on to do what we can to preserve and strengthen what we have. In the end, putting a tracker at a City Club forum or using our content in an ad designed to take down your political opponent prioritizes your short term advantage at the expense of what's in the best interest of your community and your democracy. If you're cool with that, voters should know it.

On to the legal issue. I once wanted to be a lawyer, and admittedly, this kind of argumentation—one party's copyright against another party's fair use—is all pretty fun and meaty stuff. And yes, there are some First Amendment, free speech implications in all of this. Here's what I know. Our programs are copyrighted. Our partners at ideastream put tremendous resources into creating broadcast and digital content from the forums we present. Together, we created the content for the benefit of the community. We don't copyright the ideas presented—those belong to the speakers and the audience members who ask the questions. But the program itself—the video of that guy standing at the podium or the woman walking on the stage, that audio of that totally engrossing panel conversation—that's copyrighted and you shouldn’t use it. If you want to ask our permission to use it for your documentary or your class project or whatever non-commercial thing you're doing, we're excited to talk to you about it and work out a rights agreement.

However, if you want to steal it off the web and throw it into your ad and claim that's covered under fair use law, you'd be doing precisely what we asked you not to do. If you're a well-heeled $100 million campaign, you can afford pricier lawyers than the City Club and ideastream. That's all up to you and your campaign consultants. It's not a good look from our point of view, but maybe you've already made that calculation. Maybe you've also already calculated the cost to democracy and a civil society institution that exists to give you a way to connect with voters and constituents, and you've decided it's worth it. I hope that's not the case, though.

At the end of the day, here's what we think. You're bigger than that. You can wage a strong campaign without damaging a civic institution that our community depends on. If you're tempted to use our footage for your negative ad, please just don't. Get your money's worth out of your campaign staff and ask them to do better.

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