Legal Concerns (part 2)
In this final section on legal and ethical issues we'll cover:
staging
copyright
talent and location releases
Staging
Staging applies to ENG and documentary work and involves the alteration of objects or conditions within a scene, or broadcasting a "reenactment" of certain news events, without telling your audience.
The motivation for staging can range all the way from an attempt to enhance the look of a scene to a blatant effort to alter the truth.
If staged footage is broadcast and is found to represent an effort to misrepresent the truth of a situation, it can result in fines by the Federal Communications Commission, a lawsuit by an offended party, and a loss of credibility for a news organization—not to mention severely damaging your professional status.
There are both individuals and organized groups constantly monitoring news for signs of bias or misrepresentation. Because of the laws that govern television, it has far less latitude than newspapers when it comes to "slanting the truth."
The bottom line: no matter what your personal feelings are, present situations and viewpoints as honestly as possible. "Truth" is easy to defend; slanting a story is not—although the latter route may be tempting. In the long run it opens the door to all kinds of legal, ethical and professional problems.
Staging also involves the reenactment of events. Sometimes this is deemed acceptable, sometimes not.
For example, if you are covering "the handing over of the gavel" to a newly-elected officer during a meeting, you will frequently find that the people involved often expect—maybe even prefer—to do the whole thing over again afterwards for the media. This allows camera people to light the scene as they want, make sure no people are blocking camera angles, and arrange people so they can all be clearly seen. It is doubtful that the public expects authenticity in this type of situation.
But, there are other times when the public assumes they are seeing "the moment." If you reenact a critical moment in sports history when someone breaks the world hi-jump record (and you don't bother to inform your audience that what they are seeing is actually a warm-up or a reenactment ), it's an entirely different matter.
Question: is it unethical to simply enhance a scene by removing distractions on a desk, moving a coat rack out from behind someone's head, or setting up your own special lighting?
Although "purists" might argue that you are "tampering with the truth" if you change anything in a scene, most videographers routinely do this when they see a need.
The dividing line is whether you are enhancing a scene for the sake of clarity and technical quality, or if you are distorting the truth.
Using Comparable Footage
A related issue is the use of comparable footage, videotape that appears to be the event being reported, but is from an earlier time, or even a different location.
You might be tempted to cut in some unused scenes from yesterday's forest fire to illustrate today's story on the same fire. Some would say, "A fire's a fire, what's the difference?" Well, there is a difference and the FCC has taken a dim view of this kind of thing—unless the fact is made quite clear to the viewing audience. Simply keying the phrase "file footage" or an earlier date over the footage will suffice.
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Copyrighted Materials
Music, photo illustrations, drawings and published text are copyrighted and cannot be broadcast or reproduced for distribution without clearance or permission from the copyright holder.
Using something that's copyrighted without permission can result in a $25,000 fine and one year in prison. (And that's only for the first offense; things get worse after that.)
Sometimes, especially in the case of noncommercial television use, permission to use copyrighted materials will be granted without charge, or for on-screen credit. More typically a fee must be paid to the copyright holder. But, to protect yourself and your company or institution, make sure you get the permission in writing.
In the case of videos, you can feel reasonably safe using copyrighted material that will be viewed only by family members or a small group of people where no admission is charged.
However, if you are producing the video for broadcast or distribution, or you intend to enter the piece in a video contest that which is giving away prizes, you'll need permission to use copyrighted material and a signed talent release from on-camera principals. (More on that later.)
At the same time, text, photos, film, or video produced by the U.S. federal government does not fall under copyright restrictions unless it was done by an outside agency that used copyrighted material. (It's best to check.)
The Fair Use Act
The fair use act allows copyrighted material to be used in limited ways for criticism, teaching, scholarship, news, or research without the permission of the copyright holder.
Frankly, the fair use act is not well defined; and, unfortunately, we'll only get a clearer picture of what constitutes fair use after a number of court cases have addressed the issue.
Many assume—we would hope, accurately—that under this act small portions of copyrighted work could be used for a limited time for criticism, teaching, scholarship, news, or research, as long as this use doesn't appreciably affect the income that could be derived from the work by the copyright holder.
Works in the Public Domain
A work is in the public domain when its copyright has expired. Although many old music selections are in the public domain, you need to watch out for recent arrangements of older works that have come under new copyright restrictions.
Securing Rights to Music
Obtaining clearance to use a copyrighted music selection involves of three steps.
you need to get a synchronization license from the music copyright owner
you must get dubbing rights from the record company that produced the record
you must get the artist's permission
This is a cumbersome process, and we won't go into all the details here, but there are agencies that specialize in securing music clearance.
There are also organizations such as ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) that specialize in licenses for music used in productions and on-air broadcasts.
But even if your broadcast station or production agency subscribes to one of these services, it's important to note that the standard performing rights license that you typically pay for does not cover the use of music in commercials, public service announcements and productions. You need to check your license carefully to see what it does and does not cover.
Music and Sound Effect Libraries
Since music clearance is complex and cumbersome, there are audio libraries that can be purchased on CD's that consist of a wide variety of musical selections and sound effects. Once the library is purchased you can use the material over an extended length of time for most production purposes.
Material in these libraries has been written or selected with the needs of the video and film producer in mind. With titles like "Manhattan Rush Hour," and "Serenity," you immediately know the nature of the musical selections.
Some of the largest collections—feature some 2,500 sound effects on 60 CDs
Under "Cars," for example, you will find sound effects such as windshield wipers, horns, various engines, a car stalling, doors slamming, windows opening, seat belts snapping, a car passing and a car skidding. Under "Babies" you will find crying, hiccups, gurgling, laughing, bathing, babbling, coughing, first words, singing and tantrums.
Many postproduction houses put sound effects on an editing server. When one is needed they just go into a master listing, find what they want and recall it instantly.
Thanks to digital electronics these effects can be modified in endless ways to more perfectly meet needs—speeded up, slowed down, reversed, made to appear closer or farther away from the microphone, etc.
Using Original Music
To get around many of the problems in the use of music many producers prefer to use original music. There are three main advantages.
it solves clearance problems
the music can be tailored to moods, pace and time requirements
it eliminates the "emotional baggage" associated with well known musical selections
If the music is relatively simple (possibly a guitar, flute or organ), or it is electronically synthesized (which most music is today), original music can be done rather inexpensively. In the hands of an expert, a music synthesizer can create the sound of anything from a single instrument to a full orchestra.
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Talent Releases
Using someone's "likeness" (a photo or a video of them) without their permission can get you into legal trouble—especially if you use that "likeness" for commercial purposes.
By having the person sign a talent release or a model release you can be granted the permission you need. This protects a videographer in case the person or persons later decide they don't want the footage broadcast, or want extra compensation. Here is a sample talent release.
Location Release
It may come as a surprise that you may need a release to use property as well as people in a video. For example, you could not use a well-known amusement part as a setting for your commercial video without the permission of the property owner. Thus, there are also location releases.
Finally, bear in mind that the "once over lightly" treatment of complex legal issues in this article is only designed to alert you to possible danger areas. Law libraries have thousands of books on these areas—and there is still great uncertainty about what's legal and what isn't.
About the only thing we know for sure is that lawsuits are very expensive for all parties involved and the best defense is no offense.
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Excerpted from: http://www.cybercollege.hm/tvp067.htm
This article was acquired on the "fair use" basis. We encourage you to visit the source website for more information on this subject.
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