Mickey Is A Wingnut

by digby

I’m sure that most of you have read about the dust-up between the blogger Spocko and ABC/Disney wherein Disney shut down his blog for posting pieces of air pollution they call talk radio at ABC’s KSFO and alerting advertisers. It caused quite a stir. Disney was very angry that someone would use their clips without obtaining permission despite the fact that it was non-commercial and fell easily under fair use doctrine.

I wonder what Disney’s planning to do about this:

In a move that could rekindle a heated political debate, Fox News said Thursday that it planned to broadcast footage from ABC’s controversial miniseries “The Path to 9/11” that was edited out of the docudrama amid criticism that it inaccurately portrayed the Clinton administration’s response to the terrorism threat.

The outtakes, scheduled to air Sunday, depict then-national security advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger refusing to approve a CIA request to attack Osama bin Laden, an event that Berger and the Sept. 11 commission say did not occur.

The final version of the movie that aired on ABC in early September still included the scene, but it had been toned down after protests from top Democrats.

Several minutes were culled, including an exchange in which Berger is depicted hanging up on then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, according to a Fox News producer who has seen both versions.

The previously unaired footage is scheduled to be broadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday on “Hannity’s America,” a new show with Sean Hannity, one of the cable news network’s most popular hosts.

Fox News obtained the outtakes by taping a public talk that Cyrus Nowrasteh, writer and producer of “The Path to 9/11,” gave to a World Affairs Council chapter last Friday at Cal State Channel Islands. Nowrasteh discussed making the docudrama and played several minutes edited out of the movie.

Is Disney really going to allow its rival Fox to make money from their mini-series without properly licensing that footage? Really?

I would hate to think their lawyers believe it’s in the company’s best interest to send cease and desist letters to internet critics of their far right radio hosts for violating copyright and will do nothing when rightwing conservative Sean Hannity does exactly the same thing for commercial purposes on a rival network.

That might make somebody think that Disney has an ongoing, demonstrable bias toward right wing conservative politics, even to its shareholders’ detriment. That can’t be right.

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