Free speech lets us say or write, within a few guidelines to protect the masses, what we wish, even if it is unpopular and criticizes the government. Copyright protection keeps others from taking our creative efforts (whether it be lifting a melody, a literary passage, or any other creation we come up with, like when former Beatles member George Harrison lost the lawsuit lodged against him by The Chiffons for taking their melody of “He’s So Fine” and turning it into “My Sweet Lord”), and using it without permission and/or monetary compensation. It’s plagiarism (like what Joe Biden did when he was in college). The two are vastly different. There are provisions in the law that permit for spoof and parody (like what Weird Al does with songs) and for “fair use” or “educational purposes.” CAIR can’t legally use anyone’s creative works without his or her blessing. Don’t know why he took them to court, but that was his legal right if they were using his material without permission. So maybe he was a jerk to do it, but maybe they were also jerks in trying to use the snippets without permission or in making a payment of royalty. I’ve never listened to him on the radio (and only recently even found out who Michael Savage is), so I’m not up on the specifics of the lawsuit.

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OK, I just now checked out your link you provided and in a much grander way, the article you directed me to covers what I did above. Michael Savage had every right legally to prevent usage of his material by anyone (like SNL preventing skits of their show being embedded on YouTube), but he probably went overboard on it. No banning of entry, no defamation of character like the UK has done, just protecting his intellectual property, which is likely his bread and butter. You do bring up an interesting irony. Thanks for the link and thanks for your well presented post. When I have a little more time, I’ll read what you provided further to see why he lost. Maybe it was that “fair use” stipulation. I’m up against a deadline right now, so regrettably can’t read the article as carefully as I’d like.

Oh, and just one more thing. I believe I read that he will be lodging his suit (if he actually does it) against the department that defamed him. Apparently, the UK has draconian defamation laws, and they broke it when they banned him entry based on their shallow evaluation and lumping him in with terrorists. So, we’ll see what happens… should be quite the ride.

However, Savage is no friend of free speech. Despite Savage painting himself as a champion of free speech, he is anything but. He took the organisation CAIR to court to prevent them from using snippets of his show on their website. He lost. However, had Savage prevailed, free speech would have lessened for us all. See:

http://tinyurl.com/27ladx

.