Legal Ownership of Footage, Part II

[TomAiello 26]

I have read this thread on the legal ownership of video footage.
I was wondering if anyone can answer a few specific questions.
1) If the person in a video doesn't wish it to be shown, can the videographer (who owns the footage) still show it to private audiences (rather than as a for-profit venture)?
2) If the video includes a fatality, can the family of the deceased legally prevent the video from being shown (again, not for profit)?
3) If the videographer gives a copy to a friend, can that friend show the video (not for profit)?
I realize that the whole equation changes if you are making money from the footage. In this case, I am thinking about a very specific case described here. In particular, I am curious about the threat of legal action made by Wayne in posting #22.
The actual footage was shot by a third (currently uninvolved) party, and given (with consent, but non-commercially) to various other persons, from whence it has slowly percolated in a friend-to-friend manner throughout the BASE community.
Is anyone familiar with the legal angles, here?
Thanks for any help.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[quade 4]

I will not address the MORAL issues involved, only what I've been taught about the LEGAL issues.

For a short while during and just after college, I was an investigative photo journalist.

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I have read this thread on the legal ownership of video footage.

I was wondering if anyone can answer a few specific questions.

1) If the person in a video doesn't wish it to be shown, can the videographer (who owns the footage) still show it to private audiences (rather than as a for-profit venture)?

As long as the footage was shot in a generally publicly accessible place, then absolutely.

For instance, let's say I'm at the Grand Canyon and I happen to get footage of Joe Kanoodler (a non-public figure) doing some kanoodling with someone that isn't his spouse. Joe sees me taking the footage and gets pretty damn huffy about it, but ultimately I get in my car and drive away. Joe takes down my license plate number and stalks me to my home and demands that I hand over the footage. Well, he has no rights to the footage whatsoever. He had no expected right to privacy in the location he was doing his kanoodling. I tell him to buzz off and I can show it to my buddies later that night at a frat party if I want to.

It gets better if he's a public figure (public official) because now I can sell it to the media without his permission.

If, on the other hand, I decide to sneak up on Joe and his biotch at a hotel and poke my lens through the curtains -- then I'm in pretty big trouble. Same deal with the public official. In a hotel, home or other place they could expect privacy, I can't sneak up on them. This is also the basis of prosecuting "up-skirt" videos as well as "restroom" videos. In those instances, people have an expected right to privacy.

I -can- however, sit out in the parking lot and get shots of them leaving the hotel room. The area around the hotel rooms area generally publicly accessible and as long as the hotel doesn't bring charges against me for trespassing, everything's as it was before. I could easily get the shot from a publicly accessible location with a very long lens, so that's not usually an issue.

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2) If the video includes a fatality, can the family of the deceased legally prevent the video from being shown (again, not for profit)?

The exact same rules should apply.

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3) If the videographer gives a copy to a friend, can that friend show the video (not for profit)?

Again, the exact same rules should apply.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[TomAiello 26]

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I will not address the MORAL issues involved, only what I've been taught about the LEGAL issues.

Thank you. There is already a big enough hub-bub about that in other places.
Thanks for answering my questions, Quade. I didn't find the lecture boring in the least.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Deuce 1]

I doubt the same standards apply to the general public that apply to law enforcement, but in law enforcement there have been decisions regarding using extreme zoom, night-vision, and forward looking infrared. The argument has been successfully made that if the subject matter was not visible to an unassisted human eye, than the subject matter was not in a "public place".

Not all that applicable to your post, but interesting (to me anyhow)

[quade 4]

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. . . but in law enforcement there have been decisions regarding using extreme zoom, night-vision, and forward looking infrared.

And, of course, you're also talking about admissible as evidence. For instance, there's nothing illegal about a lie detector, but generally speaking -- it's not evidence.

I would imagine that as far as taking photographs are concerned you have both greater and lesser latitude depending on the situation.

For instance, maybe you can't take a long night vision shot for the purposes of evidence, but I would imagine that it'd be perfectly acceptable to surveil somebody and direct officers to a location based upon it -- I'm thinking a helicopter with FLIR while chasing a perp under trees.

Further, I'm thinking that if gunshots were fired at the time of the arrest, perhaps killing an officer, the video recording of the FLIR would -somehow- get entered as evidence.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Similar rules apply here in Europe. I looked into this a long time ago when a (then relatively well known) camera flier refused to give me tapes of dives I had done, even though we had payed him.
He was moaning about copyright issues, loss of earnings if I subsequently sold the video, etc, but was just being an asswipe! The dives weren't astounding,and the quality was pants.....

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[lewmonst 0]

Quade,
I've just gotta say that explanation was very well stated, and funny too. Thanks.

peace

http://www.exitshot.com

[Deuce 1]

Yes! We just don't see the word "Kanoodling" quite enough!

[spidermonky 0]

Hey Tom, I've got a similar question you probably know the answer to. I've seen alot of BASE footage that is obviously illegal, is it safe for these people to be posting this stuff online? Couldn't some law enforcement use it as evidence to prosecute?

[Zenister 0]

(my .02)from what i've been told the statute of limitations is 5 years for trespassing, so if the video somehow proves you were somewhere you shouldnt have been well..expect your misdemeanor fine in the mail..

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[skychic68 0]

Be careful. If you shoot video and someone gets hold of it by accident, make sure you get your peice of the pie if it is perhaps sold to a big tv show for profit. If I shot the video and someone else is selling it, yeah, i'm going to be ticked off, but be darn sure I'm going to get a peice of the pie. Protect your valuable footage from sharks.

Que sera sera

[TomAiello 26]

There was a case a few years ago, where the judge ended up throwing out confiscated video as evidence. The defense attorney argued (successfully) that altering video is easy enough that any video could easily have been shot anywhere, then changed (by the jumpers, prior to confiscation).
I think it would totally depend on the situation, and the particular trial.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com