> Given the turnover in tech support, even an "assigned" drone will likely be
> some random person by the time you need help.

Call centers already assign their employees with fictional names and locations. All they need to do is slap that information in a database for the next representative to use. Unless there's a major difference in accent or sex, it's not like most people would even notice a difference.

The courses you really have to be wary of are the ones without any exam.

> Nothing against the man, but I'd be surprised if he was in *any* spanking
> movie, yet alone a really good one.

Nice try, but I am not googling "Kofi Annan spanking movie".

Yeah, I'm not saying I agree with what the article is saying. Just the way the OP was interpreting it.

Sony does some pretty dumb things, but I don't think they're quite dumb enough to effectively announce that they're happy to violate the GPL for projects they don't think anyone will sue them.

Then again... it's Sony.

> Sony wants to not use GPL-licensed code in its proprietary products.

Well, no. If you RTFA, it suggests Sony wants to use GPL-licensed code except for projects the license is actually enforced. They'll use the Linux kernel because the Linux kernel community doesn't bother with GPL enforcement. They don't want to use Busybox because the Busybox developers will sue them for license violations.

Of course, it's a bit of a risky strategy. Just because someone hasn't enforced their copyrights so far doesn't mean they still can't or won't. You'd think their own lawyers would raise a stink about it...

It may just be that the songs they use for this stuff are from "old media" artists who aren't savvy about using their music for a good public shaming. Borrowing a "Heart" song is a heck of a lot less risky than, say, a Dave Carroll song.

Give it time, I guess.

> So, you're saying the liberal media conspiracy will try to suppress the
> message of the Republicans who are just trying to get out the truth?

Nope, I'm saying that if you're going to try to build goodwill by associating with pop culture, those responsible for creating that pop culture are in an ideal position to turn it against you, and it would be a far more effective and useful approach than a lawsuit. It doesn't matter which party or even which country you're talking about, either. It's just not a smart PR move, and I don't understand how a major political campaign, as obsessive as it is about details like nailing down the perfect "presidential" haircut, wouldn't have done something to mitigate that risk.

> Because he doesn't have total legal control.

Good point. It was bad choice of words.

In essence, he has the right to create derivative works from the song without getting into a big licensing kerfuffle. At least, he's got way more rights in that respect than anyone else.

He probably can't *stop* Newt Gingrinch for using his song, but he could certainly work to ensure that when people hear the song in the context of Newt Gingrinch, the first thing that comes to mind is "senile old horse fucker".

> How many votes do you think an issue like this will swing? Five?

It's not just an issue, it's an opportunity for someone to build an attack ad using popular and catchy music the candidate has been trying to build an association with.

So, to answer your question,it could swing as many votes as an effective political attack ad. I don't know how many that'd be, but it's obviously not a trivial number given how often political parties use attack advertising in their campaigns..

Why wouldn't a political candidate double check to make sure that the composers/artists/etc responsible for music their using in their campaign is, at worst, neutral towards them?

Because, quite frankly, if I had total legal control over a piece of art that some dickwad I didn't like was appropriating for PR purposes, my first instinct would be to do my own counter-PR version and dump it on whichever public channels I could find.

For instance, a youtube video set to "Eye of the Tiger" which just shows a picture of Gingrinch on a punching bag being pummeled by various disadvantaged types with captions explaining their beefs against him and the Republican party might be an effective way to develop a negative association between him and the song.

Why in the world would a political campaign risk pissing someone off like that?