Why the Fox News Suit Against Robin Carnahan's Campaign Is Bogus

Last week, in an apparently unprecedented move, Fox News sued Robin Carnahan, Missouri's Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, for copyright infringement. Admittedly, Fox attacking a Democratic politician isn't surprising. Nevertheless, the lawsuit is something of a watershed, because it appears to be the first time a news organization has filed a copyright lawsuit against a political candidate for using a news clip in a campaign ad before an election. The lawsuit highlights the troubling tendency of copyright owners to make overreaching claims about the scope of their legal rights. The Carnahan case is also an example of something even more pernicious: the potential for copyright law to become a means of political censorship.