Flashback post: Poetic justice

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 11 comments
Categories: election 2014, john key, music, national - Tags: , ,

Irish Bill originally posted this on 1 December 2007. For no reason at all we thought it warranted a reprint.

Remember when the National Party threatened the Standard with copyright infringement? Nothing ever came of it of course because we had the fair defence of satire. But at the time we figured it showed the Nats were tuned it to intellectual property rights and the misuse of others people’s material. How wrong we were. According to an article in today’s Herald our litigious mates may have bitten off more than they can chew after ripping off Coldplay’s “Clocks” for their dull and expensive John Key promotional DVD. As musicologist (and Dunedin music legend) Graham Downes puts it:

If I were approached by a lawyer to furnish a report for a prosecution of copyright infringement against the music on the DVD I would happily do so. If approached by a lawyer to furnish a report in its defence, I would decline.

It’s kinda funny that the party that considers itself the party of business and claims to be “ambitious for New Zealand” would make such a basic property rights blunder and do so while trying to riff off an overseas band rather than getting some decent original Kiwi music. I’d expect National will be getting a cease and desist from EMI sometime soon. I wonder what my copy will be worth on trademe then.

David Farrar had this to say at the time:

I blogged my views about this on Saturday. It’s very messy and not a good look. I suppose the bright side is it happened this year not with say the election campaign itself, but it’s an own goal that will hurt. I think I can safely predict it won’t happen again!

10 comments on “Flashback post: Poetic justice”

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  1. 1

    Following the ‘threatened’ link, I found these two comments 😉

    Bryce Edwards 10
    15 October 2007 at 1:03 pm

    Who are Francis Till, Jason Ede, Rhiannon White?

    It looks like they work for National MPs in Parliament. But shouldn’t this be a extra-parliamentary issues for the Party HQ?

    Bryce
    http://www.liberation.org.nz

    Robinsod 11
    15 October 2007 at 1:09 pm

    Damn Bryce you’re right. Does this mean National has been using parliamentary staff to work on issues related to its political image? It’s bad enough they want to attack the Standard’s freedom of speech but it seems they’re willing to use my taxes to do it. Corrupt!

    http://thestandard.org.nz/national-on-free-speech/#comment-1243

    2. 1.2

      There is a major Merrill Lynch banker based in the Asia Pacific called Jason tiEDE.

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/neoedgegallery/6880322754/

      Francis Till

      https://web.archive.org/web/20050212173229/http://till.co.nz/tillnet
      The working journal of Francis Till,
      an American writer freelancing
      in New Zealand and web editor of
      the National Business Review

      http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/francis-till/0/713/4aa
      Interesting list on his “Viewers of this profile also viewed…”

      Rhiannon White (linked from Francis Till’s linkedIN page)

      http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rhiannon-white/11/2a1/542?trk=pub-pbmap

      Director, Product Management (Advertising), Shazam Entertainment Ltd
      Menlo Park, California (San Francisco Bay Area) Online Media

      1. 1.2.1

        Rhiannon is a University of Otago graduate. So it’s an interesting move from Key Govt to California Entertainment industry…..

    1. 3.1

      I said yesterday that I found it strange that there is a major Merrill Lynch banker based in the Asia Pacific called Jason tiEDE. I still do.

  5. 5

    Interesting to see Jason Ede was getting into practice for his later roles. What exactly were/are those roles though?

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