Brad Pitt clip puts Fox News on 'fair use' hot seat
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Fox News is being sued for showing unauthorized video of Brad Pitt failing to control his motorcycle as he drives slowly in Hollywood.
The footage aired last October during Bill O'Reilly's show, where he used it to criticize paparazzi.
The owner of the footage, Media2Air, says it licensed the video to various media outlets under strict time and platform guidelines, but the News Corp-owned network just took it "as part of its continuing coverage of the Pitt family."
Fox News claimed "fair use," even though News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch has condemned search engines for "stealing" his newspapers' stories under the same pretext and has predicted that courts would eventually bar "fair use." The comments have made their way into Media2Air's new lawsuit against Fox News.
After Fox allegedly downloaded the clip off TMZ and broadcast it on October 27, 2009, Media2Air said it immediately contacted Fox, which used the footage again two days later. The following day, a cease-and-desist letter was sent. Another follow-up letter was sent in February.
According to the complaint, Fox attorney Carlotta Cassidy then called Media2Air and said use of the video was proper, citing the "newsworthy rule" (an aspect of fair use). Nevertheless, Cassidy allegedly blamed a Google cache for the continued appearance of the footage on the Fox News website, and Media2Air said it believed the video would soon be taken down.
That allegedly didn't happen. The suit argues that the offending image is still on Fox's website and is being used "with absolutely no commentary or critical purpose."
Media2Air objects to Fox News' characterization that this was a fair use. "Fox News is wrong," the complaint puts it bluntly. As proof, the plaintiff trots out testimony by -- you guessed it -- Rupert Murdoch.
