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Comment by jbenz | Hacker News Reader

I guarantee I never would have heard about this video (which sounds hilarious) if not for this news story.

Pretty sure the NRA knows who Barbara Streisand is. There were all upset about her movie, The Long Island Incident. Maybe they are not as familiar with her Effect.

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Let's ignore the topic of the video itself since gun control is quite a controversial issue. If you start producing political videos (and despite being a parody, it's certainly political) that contain libelous "paid for by" messages you are going to have problems regardless of the subject. There's a reason you see these messages in every political ad that airs in America, people take them very seriously.

To the anonymous downvoters, note that it is illegal (and not just a civil issue) to falsify this kind of statement in some states. I'm not sure what people are disagreeing with since nobody has left a dissenting comment, so I'll just ask this: if the target here was a parody video encouraging mothers to abort 104-week-old fetuses that claimed to be "paid for by Planned Parenthood" would you have the same opinion? If not I think you're letting your opinion on guns get in the way.

> (To the anonymous downvoters, note that it is illegal (and not just a civil issue) to falsify this kind of statement in some states.)

Can you say more about this--can you give some example state laws?

Note that Google apparently is comfortable leaving the video up on youtube with the "Paid for in part by the NRA" notice intact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8punyPP-bs

The states I've checked all have a law against misrepresenting the origin of a political advertisement that advocates (even indirectly) for/against a candidate or party, and sometimes ballot measures are included too. Some of them are more strict than others, this is from Texas for example:

    A person commits an offense if, with intent to
    injure a candidate or influence the result of an
    election, the person enters into a contract or
    other agreement to print, publish, or broadcast
    political advertising that purports to emanate
    from a source other than its true source.

It's hard to say this is a traditional political advertisement. Whether you could convince a judge that an ad purporting to be from the NRA (and presumably making Republicans look bad) is intended to influence an election is questionable. If they had included mention of Hillary or Trump in the video this would be pretty clear cut, but as is it's harder because the link between supporting or attacking candidates through political entities they do or don't support without actually mentioning them by name is a case law issue.

'It's hard to say this is a traditional political advertisement. Whether you could convince a judge that an ad purporting to be from the NRA (and presumably making Republicans look bad) is intended to influence an election is questionable.'

This seems to be the key issue. It seems unlikely that a prosecutor could achieve a conviction under these laws, given the specific meaning of some of the terms used (as defined in §251.001). I haven't seen the video, but it sounds like it was a general parody of the NRA?

At any rate, a prosecutor would have to prove that:

1. The creator of the video has specific intent to harm a particular candidate, or otherwise influence the election result.

2. The latter part of #1 (influence result) seems to be made irrelevant by the definition of 'political advertisement': "...means a communication supporting or opposing a candidate for nomination or election to a public office or office of a political party, a political party, a public officer" [§251.001 (16)]

This issue is murky for two reasons:

1. The Yes Men is assumedly not paying to promote this video (so it's not "an ad"), 2. The message is not electioneering.

We're used to seeing, "paid for by" and "I approved this..." messaging in electioneering ads that are regulated by the FEC. The NRA, a 501(c)(4), has to play by different rules to keep its status.

IANAL, but I'd assume that the NRA would need to argue that the video puts their 501(c)(4) status at risk to warrant legal action outside of just playing the copyright/damages card.

The NRA, as a 501(c)(4), is most certainly able to do electioneering, although there are of course constraints (I think it's limited to members?).

But it also has a PAC, the Political Victory Fund, which is quite able to do the usual stuff, here's their first TV ad for this election they just cut, I've set the time to the last 5 seconds where they claim it per the law: https://youtu.be/SIl20jItjHY?t=25

> note that it is illegal (and not just a civil issue) to falsify this kind of statement in some states.

While true, the Yes Men have a long track record with this type of parody. On this basis, I assume that the legal and monetary repercussions have been negligible.

A list of their past targets:

  * George W. Bush
  * Dow Chemical
  * WTO
  * U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  * ExxonMobil
  * BP
  * Shell Oil
  * U.S. Chamber of Commerce
  * GE
  * NY Times
  * NY Post

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men

  * ExxonMobil
  * BP
  * Shell Oil

OK, these three alone have more money and lawyers than the NRA could ever dream of. If they didn't pursue legal action, there's not a snowball's chance in a hatchery this is going to hold in court.

Streisand effect would be desirable in this case because then everyone would know it wasn't actually the NRA that produced the video and that it isn't an official position of the NRA.

The video makes a complete mockery of gun rights. I can assure you the NRA would not view the Streisand effect as desirable.

I have friends who are big-time NRA supporters. They regularly share articles on facebook that mock this kind of thing -- nitpicking inconsistencies, claiming they don't understand various points, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the NRA itself has shared this video, with a clickbaity title like "when gun-grabbing idiots run out of arguments, they do THIS instead" and a counterargument below it that uses the word "stupid" or "moronic" at least 4 times.

The Yes Men expect and desire to have their parody websites shut down by legal action. It is part of their publicity playbook. They purposefully build their sites to maximize the chance it will happen.

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