NM-01: White Campaign Pilfers and Doctors Photo of Heinrich for TV Ad

It's a given that many of the Republican campaigns this cycle have been dishonest, negative and downright sleazy, but now we have accusations by a local blogger of stealing on the part of the Darren White campaign. White is the Repub candidate for Congress in NM-01, and he's the Bernalillo County Sheriff to boot. You'd think the campaign of a law enforcement official would follow the letter and intent of the law but, in this case, you'd be wrong.

Turns out that allegations of copyright infringement are being made by Johnny Mango (Jon Knudsen), who blogs at Duke City Fix. Back in March, Johnny took a photo of Martin Heinrich, the Dem Congressional candidate in NM-01, and posted it on DCF. Mango says he spotted his photo -- doctored to make Heinrich look bad -- in the latest TV ad by White. You can read all about it here, in a post entitled "Sheriff Darren White Stole My Picture...Then Tortured It!!!" -- and see how Mango's photo compares to the one shown in the White commercial. Sure looks like the same pic to me.

So is the White campaign's unauthorized and unattributed use of the photo really copyright infringement -- or in other words, stealing? I think so, but there are some grey areas in the law. Whether or not it's illegal, though, I think it's a low-life thing to do. Especially for a candidate who paints himself as "law and order" all the way. I guess White believes we should do as he says, not as he does. No wonder he's down in the polling.

See this post by Gwyneth Doland at the NMI for another view on this.