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Another Lawsuit Hits 'Stolen Honor'
Filmmaker George Butler sued Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. on Thursday, saying its documentary showing a one-sided view of presidential candidate John Kerry's anti-war activities violates his copyrights by using pictures and film without permission.
Story Continues Below The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeks unspecified damages and a halt to any use of the material Butler has created in the more than three decades he has documented Kerry's life. Butler said in the lawsuit that Sinclair infringed upon his copyrights by the unauthorized reproduction of pictures and film for its documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal."
The 42-minute Sinclair film consists largely of interviews with U.S. prisoners of the Vietnam War who survived torture in Hanoi and became enraged at Kerry and others for suggesting they had suffered for an unjust cause. Messages left for comment with lawyers for Sinclair, based in Hunt Valley, Md., were not immediately returned. Butler has taken at least 6,000 pictures of Kerry since he began documenting his life in 1969, convinced he eventually would be president. Some of the photos were published in the book "John Kerry: A Portrait." Kerry, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, served as captain of a Swift boat in Vietnam and won three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star for heroism. His service became a major campaign issue this year as several veterans who served on other boats appeared in television ads questioning his record and criticizing his later anti-war comments. Butler has created a documentary, "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry," in which some of Kerry's Swift Boat crew praise his leadership and valor. The portrayal differs from the anti-Kerry message in ads run by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which accuses Kerry of exaggerating his service record. The Butler film, released Oct. 1, traces Kerry's tour of duty as a patrol boat leader in Vietnam and his later involvement in the peace movement as a disillusioned veteran. The lawsuit alleges that the Sinclair documentary also infringes on the copyrights of "Winter Soldier," a 1970s documentary chronicling Vietnam veterans describing atrocities they had seen. The Kerry campaign announced Thursday it will not participate in the Sinclair news program even though the company has decided against airing the entire "Stolen Honor" documentary. Sinclair, whose executives are contributors to Republican causes, originally said the hourlong program would air in prime time on all of its 62 stations, many in swing states, prompting protests from critics and shareholders. On Tuesday, the company announced the program would appear on 40 stations and would feature parts, but not all, of the documentary. Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said Sinclair's announcement was "a panicked attempt to appear fair and reasonable." Sinclair said its Friday program, "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media," will examine the use of documentaries to influence elections. Sinclair's vice president of news, Joe DeFeo, has said he hoped to have Kerry or a campaign representative appear on the show. In its refusal, the Kerry campaign noted that Sinclair fired its Washington bureau chief after he publicly criticized the program. "When their own top political reporter had the courage to speak up, they fired him – that tells you everything you need to know about them," Clanton said. "The Kerry campaign is in no way cooperating with this discredited, partisan effort that Sinclair is poorly disguising as news."
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