For the record, Air Force Reserve Command officials responding to allegations that a new recruiting ad used a copyrighted song without permission say they have pulled the ad and say they thought they had commissioned a new song. Instead, according to the group White Stripes, the ad included a version of one of its songs. In the AFRC statement, Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, AFRC senior spokesperson, said: “The Air Force Reserve commissioned an original piece of music for its one-time, 30-second Super Bowl regional advertisement. As soon as we realized there was a question about our ad, we immediately pulled it and have no plan to re-use it. Our goal was only to attract the best and brightest Americans to become Citizen Airmen.” AFRC’s advertising agency Blaine Warren Advertising LLC, hired Fast Forward Music to score original music for the commercial.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
