Oct 31, 2006 By Alison Hawkes For The 4 min read

HARRISBURG – A lawyer for the Pennsylvania House is accusing Bucks County Democratic candidate Chris King of copyright infringement for running a televised campaign advertisement showing opponent Rep. Matt Wright speaking from the House floor. King received a letter late last week from Williamsport lawyer Thomas Marshall threatening a lawsuit if the political ad, running on Bucks County cable channels, wasn’t removed. The Republican House Speaker John Perzel initiated the letter, according to his spokesman. Wright did not return attempts to reach him to comment about his involvement.

The letter cited the House’s 1996 registration with the U.S. Copyright Office of “video of all sessions of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives” and noted a restricted use of such video for education and instructional purposes only.

King said he would remove the ad linking Wright to Philadelphia taxicab businessman Michael Etemad but not because he thinks he did anything wrong.

“John Perzel can spend every last tax dollar he has at his disposal to take me through the legal process,” King said. “I don’t have the means to compete with that.”

Several sources said the copyright issue of House video has never been tested before.

“It’s been consistently followed, and this is the first time to my knowledge that there’s been any attempt to use copyrighted footage in a campaign,” said Marshall.

The Pennsylvania Senate has a similar requirement barring floor footage in political ads.

The House and Senate also restrict media cameras, permitting credentialed still photographers and videographers to the floor on a limited basis. The Pennsylvania Cable Network regularly broadcasts floor debate with House permission. But the chamber creates the feed and controls the cameras, which usually center on the Speaker or members’ podiums, and not on what might be going on elsewhere in the room.

According to Marshall’s letter, every broadcasted video of a House session bears the following warning: “This material is for education and/or instructional use only. Notwithstanding, this material may not be used for any political or campaign activities. Copyright, Pennsylvania House of Representatives 2005.”

“We don’t believe it is a gray area,” Marshall said.

Perzel spokesman Al Bowman said the purpose of the restriction is to “protect the integrity of the proceeding” so that the full context of a lawmaker’s comments are heard by the public and not some small snippet.

In King’s case, he took five words, “… to protect taxicab owners and drivers …” from a longer speech Wright was giving earlier in the month on a bill to change the regulation of Philadelphia taxicabs.

King has been haranguing Wright for taking campaign contributions from Etemad and advocating legislatively his issues. Etemad pled guilty to mail fraud in early 2005 and admitted bribing Public Utility Commission officials.

King said he didn’t know about the House’s video restriction because the three-minute copy of the video he received of Wright speaking did not have the disclaimer. King said he did not know who dropped off the tape to his campaign office because he wasn’t there.

Bowman declined to say whether Wright brought the issue to Perzel.

“We were made aware of it and went forward from there,” Bowman said.

Without knowing the details of this campaign, Pennsylvania Common Cause Executive Director Barry Kauffman said the House’s prohibition on political activities could be good in preventing incumbents from using the floor debates as a staging ground for their own advertisements.

“For certain purposes, it might make sense,” he said.

But King sees the matter as one of free speech.

“How you can copyright the people’s business on the floor of the House is strange,” he said. “You would think this is political free speech. The business of the people of this commonwealth is done at taxpayer expense. It’d odd you would want to cover that up.”

Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com.