Sam Hardy
Sam Hardy (or Samuel Hardy) is a left-wing student
who has tried to censor
a photo of the powerful left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn
with a Hezbollah terrorist flag
at a pro-terrorist rally.
Radical British leftist
Jeremy Corbyn
is a lifelong supporter or fellow-traveller of Islamic terrorists
and other haters of the West.
He has for decades supported or
marched with Islamists, jihadists and anti-semites of many different types.
Tragically, in 2015
he became leader of the opposition in the UK.
He is more extreme than any British leader for a century or more.
For any opponent of terrorism, Corbyn is terrifying.
Sam Hardy
(or Samuel Hardy)
is a young Corbyn supporter and activist.
He went to one of Corbyn's pro-terror, pro-Iran marches in 2012 and took a photo of Corbyn, with a terrorist Hezbollah flag
and Ayatollah Khomeini poster
in the background.
(The march was full of Hezbollah flags and Ayatollah posters.)
Hardy made the error of putting this picture online.
He is now disturbed that people are using the photo to bash Corbyn.
He has been issuing copyright complaints
to get the picture taken off the Internet.
His copyright complaints seem bogus
under US law.
The
"fair use"
doctrine
strongly protects use of copyright material for the purpose of
political criticism,
especially criticism of a
powerful politician
like Corbyn.
To use copyright to try to protect a powerful politician from criticism
is disgusting and shameful.
The British voter has a right to see this picture.
Thankfully, Corbyn's leadership of Labour ended in 2020.
But he still has followers. He is still an MP.
He is still a presence in British politics.
And the British public need to see this and similar photos.
Here is the photo of Jeremy
Corbyn
with a Hezbollah flag and an Ayatollah Khomeini banner.
- The photo was taken at a
pro-terror march
in Aug 2012.
-
It was posted
here.
- After Corbyn became party leader in 2015,
people dug up this photo.
Sam Hardy tried to protect Corbyn
and prevent British voters seeing this picture.
He issued copyright complaints
to get the picture taken down.
-
However, this was not about money.
He is fine with his photos being used for pro-Corbyn or anti-Israel purposes:
"If anyone wishes to use any of my photos for a charitable purpose or for the Palestinian cause, feel free to use my images".
It is only pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn people he has a problem with.
It is a politically motivated copyright claim, to protect a powerful politician.
Like the copyright claims of the Church of Scientology.
- He refuses to licence the photo
to anyone who criticises Corbyn,
even when asked to "name his price"
by an Israeli newspaper.
- He had the photo in his
Demotix album
but deleted it to stop people using it.
So he certainly does not want money.
- He had the photo in his
Facebook album ("Al-Quds Day 2012 - London")
but deleted it to stop people using it.
- But the picture is out there.
I live outside the UK.
My site is in the US, where
"fair use" protects
use of the picture.
My website is non-profit
and my motive is entirely one of
political criticism.
It is a classic "fair use" case.
Politicians can't hide from their crimes using copyright.
The pathetic left-wing paper
The Independent
agrees that the Corbyn side should be able to suppress this picture.
This
ludicrous article
says it was a "coincidence" that men with Hezbollah flags were walking behind Corbyn
at a pro-Hezbollah demo which was full of Hezbollah flags.
They don't even
mention the Ayatollah Khomeini banner. Is that another "coincidence" too?
-
Imagine if this was reversed:
David Cameron spotted beside Nazi flag on a Nazi march. (At which he spoke.)
Tory activist works hard to suppress the photo,
saying it is "totally out of context".
The media calls the activist a principled hero.
Yes, that would really happen, wouldn't it?
- The photo is also in the
Huffington Post and
DigitalRev and
Phogotraphy.
But these worthless articles take Hardy's side in approving of the politically-motivated censorship.
So that's ok with him.
It's only anti-Corbyn people he wants to stop.
Donald Rumsfeld with
Saddam Hussein in 1983.
How would Sam Hardy and The Independent feel if reproducing this picture was banned under copyright law from a Rumsfeld supporter?
From
The Independent.
Margaret Thatcher with General Pinochet.
How would Sam Hardy and The Independent feel if reproducing this picture was banned under copyright law from a Thatcher supporter?
From
The Independent.
Sam Hardy
has been mounting a campaign to get the photo deleted to protect Corbyn.
He is making
copyright complaints to Twitter
against people who post it.
However, it seems clear that these complaints are bogus
under Twitter's own rules.
Use of images of politicians
for political criticism
seems clearly covered by
Twitter's own "Fair Use" policy
(based on US law).
Sam Hardy gets a
tweet
by
Julie Lenarz
deleted
to protect Corbyn.
And
more and
more.
And
more and
more.
And
more.
And
more.
Well done, Sam Hardy.
Nobody will ever see that picture now!
Sam Hardy's attempts to censor the picture are not popular.
People started writing about him and his anti-Israel views.
In response,
Hardy started deleting his own tweets and finally
made his tweets private
to try to hide from the criticism.
Hey, you wanted this fight.
And people who care about fighting terror are never going to stop.
Sam Hardy
says in 2011 that the Jew-killing terrorist Yasser Arafat was a "freedom fighter".
(In response to the 2015 publicity, he deleted this post.)
Genius.
From here.
A similar case arose in Nov 2019, when photographer
Rob Scott
tried to use copyright law to protect Jeremy Corbyn from criticism.
This started when
Jewish celebrity
and campaigner against anti-semitism,
Rachel Riley,
wore a t-shirt attacking Jeremy Corbyn for his decades of support for anti-semitism and anti-semites. Tweet posted 19 Nov 2019.
It is a parody of a well-known 1984 photo of Corbyn getting arrested.
The photographer of the 1984 photo,
Rob Scott,
threatens legal action to protect the powerful politician Jeremy Corbyn, 24 Nov 2019.
Bloody hell.
It's that picture again.
Ban this picture!
Protect powerful British politicians from criticism!