Footage of Dr. Phil Allegedly Imprisoning Woman Leads to Novel Copyright Decision

[steve2470]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/footage-of-dr-phil-allegedly-imprisoning-woman-leads-to-novel-copyright-decision/ar-AAr5XPR?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

First, the actual decision: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3985661-Gov-Uscourts-Txed-176701-44-0.html?utm_source=Microsoft&utm_campaign=Syndication&utm_medium=Footage+of+Dr.+Phil+Allegedly+Imprisoning+Woman+Leads+to+Novel+Copyright+Decision

now the excerpt from article:

In 2015, television personality Dr. Phil McGraw was sued by Leah Rothman, who worked as a segment director on his show for 12 years. She alleges suffering emotional distress and imprisonment when during a meeting, Dr. Phil locked the door, yelled profanities and threatened employees for supposedly leaking internal information to the press. Before she sued, Rothman attempted to get evidence by accessing a database of videos from the Dr. Phil Show archives and recording on her iPhone a nine-second clip of what happened.

In response, Peteski Productions - Dr. Phil's company - obtained a registered copyright on those nine seconds of video and filed a lawsuit alleging infringement against Rothman in Texas federal court.

That's led to a novel decision from U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Gilstrap about whether Rothman's use of the nine-second video was a fair use under copyright law. On Thursday, Gilstrap handed Dr. Phil the victory by granting Peteski summary judgment on the fair use issue.

In arriving at the decision (read the opinion here in full), the judge first examines Rothman's conduct upon Peteski arguments that bad faith weighs against a finding of fair use. That brings the judge to examining and comparing the situation to the one discussed in a 1985 Supreme Court opinion concerning how The Nation exploited a purloined unpublished manuscript of President Gerald Ford's autobiography.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Oprah should be jailed for bringing dr' Phil unto the world

[tymorial]

4. Lol. I do love Oprah but you do have a point

I loath Dr Oz.as well.

[Stuart G]

2. Oh...too much legaleze here.....??nt

[wellst0nev0ter]

3. It means copyright laws

have been bastardized to the point of being unrecognizable.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Fair use is not cut and dried.

It is weighing a bunch of factors (all that legalese). Fair use exceptions are narrow, because copyright law is based on the premise that creative works are the property of the creator (just like tangible products of one's labor). If the defendant had stolen the entire table you labored to build, you'd probably be pretty outraged if a court decided it was OK because it was "fair" to let them use it (without charge). Copyright law (and fair use) is based on the same premise. You create it - you get to decide who uses it - and is actually more lenient becuase it does permit some use without consent of the creator.

Essentially - in favor of finding fair use - the defendant didn't use it for commercial exploitation. Every other factor was neutral or fell against fair use (the most decisive of which is that it was unpublished. Authors have a near universal right to determine when and where somethign is published for the first time, and it was used for personal gain (a personal injury lawsuit)).

If it had been used in litigation that benefitted the public (or a larger group of individuals), it might have turned out differently.

[steve2470]

5. anyone else? nt