Located in downtown Richmond, VA this little known, and even less cared about, radio/podcast network blatantly broadcast a copyrighted documentary without permission or payment. Such thievery might be condoned in Iran, Yemen or Syria; but certainly not in the good old USA where citizens are free to be stupid, vapid or crooked!
The property in question, "Abel Raises Cain," won Best Documentary prizes at Slamdance and a dozen other prestigious film festivals in 2005-6. It was broadcast on the BBC-TV's coveted Channel 4 in 2007. All these venues obtained permission and paid a licensing fee. Salem Web Network did neither.
Imagine pulling up to an ATM machine outside a bank in your 4 X 4 and stealing $5,000 cash? I believe that is called highway robbery and the thief would be serving jail time, along with incarceration until returning the money, and substantial probation wearing an anklet bracelet.
One of the Salem Network's executives lives in Oxford,Mississippi and he recently wrote an impassioned plea on Facebook, addressed to Jimmy Kimmel, pleading for him to stop pontificating and return to comedy.
That is like inviting the fox to sleep in the hen house. Kimmel himself, along with his midget sidekick, committed an outrageous act of plagiarism when they appeared before "SHARKS" to seek funds for their new business: "SELLING HORSE PANTS TO CLOTHE NAKED HORSES"
The upper case letters are there because that faux campaign was copyrighted in "The Great American Hoax," published by Trident Press in 1965 and sold a year later to Paramount Pictures for a major motion picture to be produced by Martin Ritt ("Hud"), directed by Carl Reiner and starring Jack Lemmon.
Salem Web Network is to be sued in Federal Court for its copyright violation. The plaintiffs will be a group of producers who have all been victims of this heinous criminal activity, thus under the RICO statute. That will result in felony charges leading to jail time. Then a subsequent civil suit will claim damages and punitive fees totaling $6,000,000.
A team of volunteer lawyers, including a former Watergate Prosecutor, are waiting in the wings until all the flap over Cosby, Weinstein, Rose and Trump dies down. Probably the early part of 2018.
So stay tuned. There is more news to come and it's not fake.
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