OT- Video and the Law

tadpole wrote on 11/9/2003, 10:55 AM
Had a wedding recently where some "stuff" happened.. yada yada..
hotel security ended up seeing me recording all the action and demanded i give them my tape.

I was like "ya right".. rather then getting the whole wedding party booted i told him i would erase it.. he was like "this is private property [hotel] I can take the tape" i was like " i don't have to give you anything.. BUT.. i will erase it"

Anyone up to speed on the laws regarding this type of situation?
I cannot imagine any entiy (even Police) could physically take the tapes from
you so long as you weren't committing a crime

(btw,, the footage was just the security crew getting mad about a noise complaint..)

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 12:12 PM
You should have put your last sentence at the top, since it gives it a whole different spin. ;-)

For sure, I'm no expert on the law, not even close. But... it seems you were on private propety taping employees without their permission. On the surface that implies you need to get permission from the owners of the propety plus probably a release from the indvidual employees taped for you to use it. If or not the rent-a-cops were within their right or not to demand you give them your tape can get dicey.

<sidebar>

Yesterday I was watching a new version of COPS on Fox. I was shocked at either the first or second segement. The whole show focused on "resisting arrest" which if you know many cops ( I do) is frequenly just a trumped up charge.

This guy got pulled over for a traffic stop. He was acting a little flakey, yes, I give them that and as is good practice the stopping cop asked for back up. So far, fine. Where it went sour fast was after backup arrived the first cop started to put the cuffs on the guy. While he got the first hand cuffed, the guy was a little slow getting his second arm back to put on the second cuff.

What's typical next is the cops start screaming at him, one of the back up cops, a woman said 'take him down', the first cop is now in the process of trying to get the guy on the ground, the "lady" cop is on him punching him senseless including about twenty times one right after the other into this guy's stomach area. A third cop after all that and the guy is still on the ground he sprays him in the face with pepper spray. The guy after been cuffed fully is now a bloody mess, it appears he may have also got a broken nose.

The cops attempt to excuse this excessive force by claiming they didn't know what the guy was going to do, they had a right and all that.

Why the TV show would even put such clear abuse on air and hold it up as an example of "good" police work beats me. The guy could and SHOULD sue the crap out of whatever city those goons work for.


TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/9/2003, 12:52 PM
Tadpole, you techincally need release forms from EVERYONE that showed their face in the video. When you're taping for someone's wedding, school, play, etc. usually noone cares.

I don't think that the security guards could take the tape from you. If that was so then how owuld news people do their job? They would get arrested for traspessing every time they filmed someone doing something wrong! :)

It showed the security geting pissed at a customer doing nothing wrong, just complaing about ANOTHER customer!

I bet if you sent it into a local news station you could get around $100 for it. :)

tadpole wrote on 11/9/2003, 1:38 PM
Well too bad i erased it,, should have kept it and threatned to sue Hilton Hotel if Mr Hilton didn't turn over his twin daughters to me :)

Billboy - you mentioned about having a release for everyone to put on your film. Which makes sense but.. who says i am going to distribute a video with his face on it? Maybe i would never use the clip - or maybe i would blur out his face... what if it was just a personal home movie and i was a guest at the hotel?

I dunno.. i just can't imagine anyone could confiscate a tape or any equipment because there image maybe on it.. Could they ask me to leave the propert?, sure. Sue me if i distribute the tape, sure - but take my tape.. i really don't think so.....

Hoping (for once in my life :) there is a laywer in the house that can give a definitive answer the subject
BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 1:51 PM
An interesting topic. I remember another discussion in some different none video editing forum where the topic was what rights do people have to free expression in a shopping mall.

It revolved around a couple guys wearing some protest T-shirts that they happened to buy at one of the mall stores. After buying them, they put them on and were just walking around the mall. I forget exactly what the T-shirts said. They did not contain any vile languge or objectional art work, rather a political message of some sort.

The management of the mall took exception to the message on the shirts and asked them to leave the property. They refused, mall security asked them to leave, they still refused to leave, the local police were called resulting in their arrest on trespass charges.

Turns out one of the guys not only was a fancy pants attorney, he was the head of some local group like the ACLU. Not only did he make a big stink, he sued the shopping mall and they walked away with a cash settlement.

It turns out the state this happened in has a fairly liberal law (about half do) on what is considered "public property" and the rights of people to protest within the limits a "public" place suggests.

In other words ALL the public area of this giant mall under the state's law was considered "public" and that allowed any reasonable activity and demonstration, including simply walking through public area with a shirt that was less then complementary to the current resident at the White House.

While owners of this shopping center had a right to restrict activity in the public areas, the law specifically went to lengths to set speciifcs dealing with notice and fairness.

So if there would have been a notice at each enterance of the mall setting out what was prohibted the they would have been within their rights to forbid any protesting however the fairness clause demands all those demonstrating must have the law applied equally. So if the mall mangement didn't allow anti Bush T Shirts to be worn in the public area, they couldn't allow any pro Bush T Shirts either.

That's why signs like no shirt, no shoes, no service work. Its a broad all encompassing restriction that's very easy to see if or not you meet.
BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 2:04 PM
Actually it was Steve that mentioned the release form. Someone like SPOT and others that run into such things frequently maybe can shed some light on it. I guess better safe, then sorry applies. It rarely comes up for me, so can't really comment much on it other to say lots of people have had the s... sued out of them for using material that they had no right to use without first getting all the proper releases. Such things are fodder for the crop of "reality" court shows infesting daytime television.

A classic recent example may be that guy who interferred catching a foul ball in a certain Cubs game. Surely nobody bothered to get releases from all the people in that 20 seconds or so of footage. Yet it was aired over and over all over the world.
Former user wrote on 11/9/2003, 2:33 PM
The thing about the baseball game is it is a public event. I worked in news as a news photographer, and our rule was, if you were at the scene of a crime, you could be photographed. This was a public event. But if you were driving in your car down the road, and I am doing a story on road construction, I don't have a right to photograph you. This is not considered a news public event. It gets really flakey, and if you notice on some reality shows, they blur the bystanders and sometimes the participants faces. You need to releases for these type of situations that are not considered public.

Now I am surprised to hear about the mall. Most malls are privately owned and will post signs stating such. This gives them to right to restrict the activities that are there.

But in most cases the law only applies if you try to air or publish the footage. I don't believe in most cases, they have the right to confiscate your footage. But I am not a lawyer either.

Dave T2
BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 2:52 PM
Thanks, pretty much what I thought. So kind of like if you happen to see some building on fire and you stop to watch, then the TV crew can do some pan of the crowd you happen to be in and no problem, they don't need your permission, but if they are doing a story about look how badly the city takes care of your street and see some guy cutting his grass and interview him for his opinion, then in that situation you got to get his permission before airing it.

I would tend to agree that I hope at least some rent-a-cop hasn't a legal right to confiscate anything that belongs to you. They may have a right to hussle you off THEIR employer's property, but that's about it.

Sign of times we live in...

Shortly after the tragic 9/11 events I was walking past the Sears Tower in Chicago (huge building, still the tallest building in my book) anyways some obvious tourists from some Middle Eastern country were pointing a video camera at it (they probalby never saw such a tall building before) and up pulls a couple squard cars and they start "interviewing" them about what they're doing.

Sigh
Spot|DSE wrote on 11/9/2003, 4:29 PM
Tadpole,
The law is exceptionally specific about this issue, but I'm so tired of hearing the BS threads about how "unfair" this law is, and how "this guy is a jerk for wanting money for his thing" and copyrights, etc, etc, you are welcome to write me privately. I'm simply tired to death of seeing the stupidity that reigns around the video folks on this subject.
Too bad you erased though. You didn't need to, and you didn't need to give up the footage, either, except in very strict and unusual circumstances.
filmy wrote on 11/9/2003, 4:29 PM
Hey BB -

It was crossgates mall in Albany/Colinie,NY and it was a father and son. They went into a place in the mall that makes t-shirts and had 2 shirts made. One said something like "No war" and the other simple said "Give peace a chance". Form all accounts they went to the food court and some people were talking to them and either someone went to the mall office and complained or a rouge security guard decided to say somehting. My guess is someone complained at th emall office because when this story went to MSNBC and CNN and elsewhere (i.e: went national) the securtiy guard was fired. Supposedly it had nothing to do with the t-shirt incedent but most peope suspect it did. His slant was that he was on shift when mall managment told him to go upstairs to the food court and ask these two men to either take the shorts off or leave the mall. So he went and did his job, and the son turned his shirt inside out but the dad refused. he was "escorted" to the mall office where he was met by the local police and arrested.

Blah blah - the mall said it was prvate property and could do whatever it wanted - as in "we refuse the right to serve anyone for any reason" stance. Yes, it turns out the father was a lawyer and because of this things started to get 'huge' and the ACLU got involved as well as local peace protestors who staged as "lunch in" - they all wore anti-war type shirts and went to the food court one day and sat around having normal conversations about politics. Nothing happened. No arrests. No being asked to leave.

The mall was under so much pressure they dropped any charges and kepy insisting they had never pressed any to begin with. The local cops were only calle din because they got a report of a "disturbance" and they always drive the 1/2 a mile of so to the mall when they get that kind of report. They show up to help out mall security if need be. They claim the mall management asked for the man to be arrested for creating a public disturbance. More or less everyone pointed the finger at everyone else. The guy who really got shafted was the security guard who lost his job because he was doing his job - so to speak. It caused a big commotion for a few weeks but than went away, at least nationally.
filmy wrote on 11/9/2003, 5:15 PM
Just a few little things on the topic -

Many eyars ago a photographer name Brad Elterman (Spelling is wrong I am sure) told me a fried of his happened to be at a gas station when Bob Dylan pulled up and got out and started to pump gas. The guy took out his camera and pointed it at Bob and he says something like "If you take my picture I will take your camera. Put it away" so the guy did. This was wrong - public person in a public place is fair game. Public person in a private place - that is another story, and a fine line (Current case with the photogs who chased Princess Diana comes to mind)

Maybe three years ago I shot the Nickelodeon "All That and More" tour. I had this concept of what I was going to do and when I walked in I was handed this "rules" sheet - one of the rules was that I could not ever point the camera at the crowd nor could I go out into the crowd to interview any of them. At first I was a bit taken aback by this but than I relized something - one of those "too obvious" things - the overall target audience for not only Nickelodeon but these shows is around 6 - 10 years old. The rule, more than likely, was aimed at protecting children. How would you feel if you saw someone filming your 8 year old daughter? I have never had this sort of rule given to me at any other live event. (On the other hand if it is some sort of film or promo shoot - for profit yupe of thing - it is commonplace to have signs up stating the 'tonights event will be filmed...blah blah' and to have someone announce this from the stage prior to show start.)

"news" is very different from other things. Release forms and all of that are needed when you shoot certian very specific things. In the best case scenerio you would be able to get release forms from every single person on camera. On the subject of September 11, 2001 - because of the nature of that day if you, a private citizen, happened to be around you may have been filmed. You were at a very public news event -and if you were helping, wounded, running - you were part of that news story. However If it was just another day in the city and you were filmed walking out of your work and the vocie over was saying 'here is where the drug lord does daily business' you would for sure be well within your legal grounds to sue. Another way to look at it is the security at the hotel tadpole mentions - on the one hand they are 'private' but if they are involved in a news story they become public figures at a public event. Follow me? So if there was some sort of robbery going on and news crews were all there and these same guards were involved they would be "fair game" to be part of the news that was happening.

Now as someone who was just walking aorund and doing whatever you were doing, you happened to see something. They can't legally take your video but they could most certianly "escort" you off private property and legally they could ask you for a copy of that video or to view that video. Overall no one can force anyone to "hand over that tape!" Certian exceptions might apply - a crime scene for example. Members of the press may be told/asked to "not film the body" and if you do they could make life hard for you - retract press creditionals for one. After September 11, 2001 signs went up all over stating that no video or pictures could be taken of the debirs. Most were hand made, others were more "official" - by order of the FBI as well as NYPD. But this didn't stop anything from being shot. Most of the newtorks and major outlets like AP just rented or sublet apartments overlooking the site and posted people there 24/7. Sick isn't it? If a body was recovered thes people would get the picture or shoot the video. I don't know of anyone who has sued any of the networks or photogs for doing this.