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0 pointscookiecaper10y ago0 comments

If you're saying something on live television, you're probably a public figure. Nonetheless, you would own the copyright to any original statement you made on TV, and people couldn't just copy and replay it without getting legal permission. Most people who appear on TV probably sign documents granting the station licensing authority for any statement they make whilst appearing.

When you are meeting in a glass room, you can't expect privacy in the moment, but if someone takes the intellectual property you shared in that glass room and puts it somewhere else, you certainly can expect them to respect the laws that allow you to require them to stop. If they don't, you should expect law enforcement and/or the courts to assist.

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ghaff10y ago· 2 in thread

>Nonetheless, you would own the copyright to any original statement you made on TV, and people couldn't just copy and replay it without getting legal permission. Most people who appear on TV probably sign documents granting the station licensing authority for any statement they make whilst appearing.

The broadcaster would typically own the copyright to the video. I am sometimes given specific waivers to sign when I'm recorded at conferences and the like--mostly because rights to use material for marketing/commercial purposes are more restricted than the same material used for editorial. Frankly, most events etc. don't bother because the (correct) assumption is that people doing things in public aren't going to suddenly want to get rid of the content.

cookiecaperOP10y ago

Yes, they would own the copyright on the elements of the video that they produce. They wouldn't automatically own the copyright on any statement you made. The papers you sign would probably contain language much like the language on a random forum's ToS, discussing an irrevocable, non-exclusive, limited, global license to use any statement you make and/or to license the clips containing your statements out to partners. I've never been on TV, so I don't know. While it is possible that they try to get you to transfer the copyright to any statement you make, the courts are generally pretty dubious of such attempts.

Also, giving a presentation to thousands of people, whether at a conference or over a broadcast, is at least perceived a lot differently than leaving a comment on a message board, especially if it's a small one or a niche community, so different things are shared.

Suppose one is foolish as an 18-yr-old and posts on a forum most browsed by his friends, "Ha! I just got Lifelock and since I know you can't do anything to me when I have that, my SSN is 999-99-999. Just try to steal my identity!" Suppose the IA saves this statement. The OP would have a copyright interest in it and would be within his rights to point out that the IA has no privileges that entitle it to rehost that content, so please take it down. That is totally fair.

There is no reason that copyright law should only be usable by media conglomerates that mostly use it to stop the spread of free culture and not by private individuals trying to clean up some of their past mistakes.

ghaff10y ago

I'm not sure we really disagree. Anything my 18 yo self wrote that's still accessible online was filtered through editors etc. and I'm not unhappy for that :-) While I'm no fan of much of the EU right to be forgotten thinking, I'm also sympathetic to the idea that not everything we write in a young, foolish moment should be discoverable forever with no recourse. I also think that there are a lot of practical issues to getting rid of the foolishness without also creating the opportunity to eliminate things that are legitimately in the public interest/part of a historical record although, in practice, I expect that some combination of time and the sheer volume of data deals with a lot of it.