I Could Get Mitt Romney In A Lot Of Trouble

This insane staged video of Mitt Romney and his family "decidering" to make the run for President really has to be seen to be believed. As TBogg writes it was just coincidental that the camera crew happened to be in Utah right at the same time that Mitt was figuring out whether or not to run for President, and captured that human drama of him and the family weigning this heavy decision. Mm-hm.

But there's something else about the video that caught my eye, mainly because I have so experience in the matter. What seems like a lifetime ago, I worked at NFL Films, which does all the highlight reels for the National Football League. The NFL is militant about licensing any of their video. One it crosses a 3-day "fair use" window, any scrap of footage from an NFL game, whether broadcast video or the film footage they shoot, must be licensed before aired anywhere. People tried to get around this all the time and use footage "without the express written consent of the National Football League." This got to be such a problem that they instituted a "Catch the Cheaters" program, where anyone on staff could call in and get a bonus for identifying a broadcaster using NFL footage without permission. The fine for such usage is $1,500 per SECOND of footage.

I don't know if the Romney campaign got consent, and I don't know how it works on the Internet, but there's at least 30 seconds of a Patriots game on in the background when Ann Romney is talking.

I don't have time to do this today (light posting throughout), but somebody should call 877-NFL-5675 and see it the Romney campaign got the rights to that NFL footage in the background of their campaign video. Let's try to blow $50,000 of Romney campaign money, shall we? I mean, some of that cash was raised by an alleged child abuser, so it shouldn't be hard for them to part with.