Norton Attack Ad Improperly Taken From People’s Press Collective Video

By Julian Dunraven

Honorable Friends:

This morning, Eileen Mahony, D.C. Bureau Chief for the People’s Press Collective, put up a very amusing piece about how the Norton campaign borrowed rather liberally from PPC to produce their latest attack ad against Ken Buck. Well, borrowed might not be quite accurate. Given that they took video from PPC, edited it to remove the PPC copyright notices, cropped the size of the video to remove the PPC title bar, and then added it to their ad without any citation to PPC whatsoever, some might even call that stealing. Unfortunately, that seems to be the theme of this election.

Judging from the comments in Ms. Mahony’s post, some have mistakenly assumed PPC is favoring Ken Buck in the primary. This is not true. PPC does not endorse in primary elections. However, its members do tend to object when campaigns try to steal their material. It seems they have objected rather strenuously too. PPC has provided access to a series of documents detailing this matter, including the PPC cease and desist letter to the Jane Norton campaign, the Norton campaign’s response, and PPC’s reiteration of its cease and desist demands.

As one of the PPC commentators has already suggested, this incident reveals a disturbing and lack of character in the Norton campaign. Not only did the campaign grossly distort Buck’s words in its ad, it took material from the PPC without permission or even attribution to do so. The PPC’s final letter to the Norton campaign asks, “If even allies of the campaign cannot depend upon it for fair dealing, how is the rest of the state supposed to trust it?” That is a question I think many of us will be considering.