John Kerry Friend Tries to Shut-Down Website Offering Free Access to "The New Soldier"

eMediaWire ^ | 9/09/04

[kattracks]

The website http://freekerrybook.com, offering the public free access to a PDF copy of "The New Soldier" by John Kerry was temporarily shut-down by Yahoo following a complaint filed by an attorney representing George Butler, co-editor of the book and a close personal friend of John Kerry. In response, a new 527 organization has been established with a new website at http://freekerrybook.org to make information regarding this book widely available to voters prior to the Presidential election.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 7, 2004 -- James B. Davis, a private citizen, announced the formation of a new 527 organization, FREEKERRYBOOK.ORG, (http://freekerrybook.org) to provide the public free access to "The New Soldier" by John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against The War. Since its publication in 1971, John Kerry's book "The New Soldier" has acquired almost legendary status. Rumors abound of political operatives scrambling to locate and suppress stray copies during Kerry's House campaign in 1972. Copies now sell on eBay for hundreds of dollars.

John F. Kerry has made his Vietnam service the cornerstone of his campaign for President. But he has said virtually nothing about what he did when he came home. His activities and statements at the time painted our veterans with an undeserved bloody brush. Many believe, and statements by the North Vietnamese confirm, that the activities of John Kerry, Jane Fonda and others actually prolonged the war, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of our soldiers, and thousands of Vietnamese.

Mr. Davis' first website at http://freekerrybook.com was temporarily shut-down by Yahoo following a complaint filed by an attorney representing George Butler. Mr. Butler is a co-editor of the book and has been a close personal friend of John Kerry since 1964. Mr. Davis has filed a sworn counter-notification with Yahoo, demanding that the website be reactivated. George Butler is directing a film titled 'Going Up River' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407263/) purported to be a documentary about John Kerry's Vietnam service and his anti-war activities.

Mr. Davis stated, "I would hope that George Butler and John Kerry don't want the text and photos in 'The New Soldier' to be made available
because they are ashamed of what they did. But I suspect the motivation is embarrassment to John Kerry's campaign instead."

[wisconsinconservative]

I love this paragraph on page 31 of the New Soldier.
This from someone who made a career out of bamboozling his constituents.


NECESSITY OF INFORMED ELECTORATE

"Fundamentally you said that the people can bamboozle their constituents; they can fool them. Of course, that is quite true of any system of a representative nature. The solution to that is to inform the electorate itself to the extent that they recognize a fraud or a phony when they have one. This is not easy to do, but it is fundamental in a democracy. If you believe in a democratic system, the electorate who elect the representatives have to have a sufficient capacity for discrimmination. They have to be able to tell the difference between a phony, someone who simply puts pieces in the record, and someone who actually does something, so that they can recognize it in an election, if they are interested."

[pray4liberty]

Right click on the link and save the document to disk, then use Acrobat to open it.

[Fredgoblu]

Actually it is indeed a blatant infringement of copyright and not at all suprising that it would be taken down. There is no legitimate "fair use" defense here.

So, maybe Mr. Butler should incorporate as a public library. How does a library get around the "fair use" defense, anyway? Heck, when "Earth in the Balance" came out, I needed to read it to see what Gore was proposing, but I wasn't willing to pay him a dime...so I went to the library and borrowed their copy.

[doug from upland]

What do you say to a FReeper public reading of excerpts in front of Kerry's office?

[Soaring Feather]

bump

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

How does a library get around the "fair use" defense, anyway?

Libraries do not make copies of books. Copying an entire book is not a valid "fair use" defense. Kerry or whomever owns the copyright have every right to shut down sites that post his book. In fact if they want to play hardball they can sue the site or ISP for $100K per violation. Ann Coulter, Tom Brokaw, Stephen King, Pat Buchanan, ad infinitum have that same right. Just because John Kerry is liberal commie scum sucking traitor doesn't give anyone the right. If anyone doesn't think Ann Coulter will eviscerate anyone doing this with her books, just try it and see.

[albertp]

Just because John Kerry is liberal commie scum sucking traitor doesn't give anyone the right.

LOL! So Kerry actually believes in the fundamental principle of private property -- except when it comes to taxing the average working stiff to death(despite his protestations to the contrary) and extending the time that we spend as indentured servants of Big Government/Nanny State socialism.

[MeekOneGOP]

Click here to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

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See this group of Swift Boats patrolling together? They are NOT SERVING together!!! Only the ones on the SAME BOAT are serving together! Each group of personnel on each boat know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the personnel on the other boat, PERIOD !! If they say they do, they are Republican LIARS !! Unless the one talking is a DemocRAT. Then he is telling the truth, of course.

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This idjit needs to release HIS MILITARY RECORDS!

Help the Kerry Campaign With Its paperwork!
Email Them a Standard Form 180 Now!

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[bootless]

Yep - some Dem put up "swift-vets.com" (inserting the hyphen) and when you click through, the banner says "Not What You're Looking For?" and has a number of ABB stickers, etc.

[kevkrom]

Kerry or whomever owns the copyright have every right to shut down sites that post his book.

Unless, of course, the copyright has expired. See #40.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Unless, of course, the copyright has expired. See #40.

On works prior to 1978, the copyright expires 28 years after the author's death unless renewed for another term. The author of the book ain't dead yet.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

I should add that the copyright act of 1976 grandfathers in a 47 year term for those works that hadn't already expired by 1978, and the Bono Act of ninety something or other grandfathers in a 75 - 120 year term for works that haven't expired yet.

The net affect of this is about half of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft's books have entered the public domain and they died a long time ago. That is to say very roughly speaking that books written in the 1930's and 40's are the ones entering into public domian these days. Tolkein's books will enter the public domain in 2030 - 2040 something.

[Beckwith]

Can you begin to imagine the abuses of power these people will engage in if they ever obtain power.

The stuff the Kerry Kampaign, Democratic National Committee and 527s, like MoveOn.org, is doing is truly frightening.

[Bonaparte]

I know. Regnery's "generous offer" was deliciously sly.

[kevkrom]

I should add that the copyright act of 1976 grandfathers in a 47 year term for those works that hadn't already expired by 1978

This is where my reading was ambiguous. The copyright act of '76 made such works eligible for automatic extension, but it also seemed to imply the such works either had to be registered with the copyright office or the author(s) had to make some proactive measure (such as asserting the extended copyright in a newer printing). Since The New Soldier has neither been registered nor reprinted, I'm not 100% sure that its copyright was ever renewed in a timely fashion.

[fortunecookie]

As the election grows closer, the 'friends of Kerry' will get more desparate and try harder to squelch free speech and the book he was once, and I'm sure still is, inside, so proud of.

I'll bet he had no problems enjoying the royalties from that book. That can buy a lot of lobster dinners and dates with rich women. How does he sleep at night knowing that his 'testimony' empowered the enemy and caused greater pain and anguish to those men who served with him held prisoner by that enemy?