Is there a procedure for getting footage from local TV stations in an area? I want to get a copy of the coverage of an armed raid of a doctor's office in Jessup Georgia. Is this even possible?
Somehow Michael Moore always seems to get whatever he wants. Does anyone know how he does it? Not that this project is anything like his.
he falls under what I described.
Yes, even if you're entertaining, as long as you say it's for a commentary, you can use whatever you want. Because from what cable TV has show us, there's a lot of nut balls out there with comments on everything. :D
there's a BIG difference between being sued & actually loosing a suit. But I don't have the $$ to back myself up.
Look at the jibjab song that came out a few years ago about current events. The people who made it were sued for copyright infringement but the judge said it was a parody & not illegal. I could take footage of an interview CBS shot with, say, Hillary Clinton, put myself in as the interviewer & make a funny skit out of it poking fun at the responses she made.
EDIT: that's how all the picture of the whore former Gov Spitzer got all over TV: even though they're copyrighted it was considered newsworthy & allowed to be shown publicly w/o paying.
The footage I'm trying to get is of an armed FBI raid on a doctors office where they already had all the records. In fact during the raid, what they confiscated were photocopies of documents where they already had the originals. It was purely a publicity stunt and a move designed to affect the public perception of a Medicaid/Medicare investigation that was happening in the area.
In this particular case, the doctors office was scheduled to be closed at noon on a Friday but instead of coming in then (like they had before) they scheduled a raid at 9:30 when they knew it would be full of patients. They came in with guns and sent all the patients home. The News media were all informed in advance and were there to capture the event for the local News.
This was an investigation into a billing dispute by the way.
Our news department will not release any raw footage in most all circumstances. If someone calls in requesting footage of something that aired in a newscast, we refer them to a local "air-checker'" who records all of the local newscasts. They provide copies for a small fee.
You might check the station to see if they have a similar policy, but remember the aired footage will likely contain supers, bugs and snipes.