The April 4 viral video of a South Carolina police officer shooting a fleeing suspect has cost the cop his job and his freedom. But there's now another cost attached to the video, perhaps in the $10,000 range or more. A publicist for the man who captured the footage—which led to homicide charges against North Charleston officer Michael Slager— says news outlets must pay a licensing fee to carry the footage.
Australian publicist Max Markson, the chief executive of celebrity management firm Markson Sparks, told The New York Times that “I think that the people who might be put off by this are the media outlets that had it for free. Now they will have to pay.” Markson did not respond to Ars' requests for comment.
The New York Daily News said that Markson Sparks has sent cease-and-desist letters to several unnamed news outlets.
"It's been allowed to be used for free for over a week now," Markson said. "Now it's going to be licensed and now you have to pay for it."
However, at least in the United States, the media has a likely defense to claims of copyright infringement and might not have to pay a licensing fee to 23-year-old barber Feidin Santana.
The South Carolina man captured the three-minute-long footage of officer Slager shooting 50-year-old Walter Scott five times in the back. It's been watched on social media millions of times, in addition to having been repeatedly shown on broadcast and cable television. Santana turned the tape over to the Scott family after concluding that the police department's version of events didn't match what he witnessed.
"In the US, using the video of the shooting, a very newsworthy event, as part of news coverage is almost certainly a fair use, meaning no payment is required. Other countries vary," Mitch Stoltz, a copyright attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars in an e-mail.
Under US copyright law, fair use is a defense to claims of copyright infringement. Judges usually consider "four factors" when deciding whether something is fair use, including its news value.
But as Stanford University Libraries points out, there is no clear-cut answer to the question of what constitutes fair use.
"Unfortunately, the only way to get a definitive answer on whether a particular use is a fair use is to have it resolved in federal court," Stanford says.
This isn't the first time that licensing fees were demanded about a police shooting, and it likely won't be the last as filming the police has seemingly become a national pastime overnight.
The most high-profile demand for payment involved the Rodney King beating, filmed in 1991 by plumber George Holliday before YouTube and the word "viral video" was around. Holliday sought $10,000 each from about 900 outlets that aired the video. KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, where Holliday first took the tape, paid Holliday $500. He eventually sued several outlets for a combined $100 million. But in the end, he said he made less than $10,000 for the nine-minute-long video.
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