Eugene Volokh is blogging about a political ad released by the Kerry campaign. At issue is the legality of using photographs of people without their consent. There seems to be some question on where the photos were obtained - possibly from a book - thus there may be a copyright issue too.
In all of this legal wrangling (not on the part of Eugene Volokh, he is simply trying to present the case as the courts would look at it) I think people in the midst of executing a political campaign tend to forget the ultimate goal. Getting people to vote for your candidate!
The people you are trying to persuade in any campaign are those who are undecided. The ardent supporters will support their candidate until the bitter end. The ardently opposed will never ever vote for the evil of the other party. But those in the middle can certainly be swayed in either direction by decisions on the part of campaigners. Thus, it would seem to be the better part of valor, to stay away from running ads that will annoy people in the middle.
I would suggest to both parties - resist the urge to use pictures or names of people unless you have specific permission from them or their families. Mainly because nothing irritates Americans more than having someone speak "for" them. In essence, putting a picture of a person in a campaign ad, tells the world - this person supports me. You better be very sure this is the case before you base part of your campaign on that foundation.
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