RE: Copyright ownership of bin Laden video?

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, David Hale wrote:

> While I agree that here the enforcement of the copyright is unlikely, this
> concept is not unique. My firm is currently involved in a case where one
> litigant is attempting to use his copyright in an unpublished book to
> prevent its dissemination to a judge in an otherwise unrelated manner (the
> book apparently contains some materials he does not want the judge to see).

I once got a call from a colleague on a similar issue. Unfortunately, I no longer recall the details, but it was something along the lines of a criminal defendant trying to prevent a copy of an allegedly obscene videotape from being admitted into evidence. I don't recall if he objected to a copy being made for purposes of the trial, or if he claimed that the playing of the tape amounted to a public performance.

I replied that I didn't think it would be successful; a litigation privilege would prevent a party from using copyright to inhibit introduction of evidence (put in copyright terms, the repordocution or public performance, as a matter of evidence introduction, would be, in my opinion, a fair use). In this case, it was an even easier call since the defendant did not own the copyright in the videos, and his objection was based, not on his own persdonal harm, but on the principle that the prosecutor ought not to be able to do something illegal to further the prosecution.

As a practical matter, no judge is going to rule that he can't see material relevant evidence as a matter of copyright.

Didn't this come up on the OJ Simpson trial? I think there was an issue about the copyright in the audio tapes of the interviews done with Officer Fuhrman.

-- 
Terry Carroll        |  "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Santa Clara, CA      |   - Washington Legal Foundation v. Legal 
carroll[_at_]tjc.com      |     Foundation of Washington, no. 98-35154
Modell delendus est  |     (9th Cir. Nov. 14, 2001) (Kozinski, dissenting)