A very odd e-mail
 

I thought this was somewhat odd, seeing how I don't leave my personal e-mail on boards. Sound fishy to anyone else?

My name is Teddy Cannon and I am producing a TV special on street fights and
street brawls. We are looking for home video/ surveillance video of men and
women caught in the act of street fighting. We do not want any sanctioned
fights such as professional boxing. Although we would consider some
sanctioned girl fights.
We are looking for, but are not limited to, the following:

Soccer hooligans and other sports fan fights caught on tape.
Surveillance video out side night clubs.
Parties/Spring Break where a fight breaks out
After school fights.
Mob fights
Women and girl fights
Skate boarders and extreme hooligan fights
Fight Clubs

We are looking for raw, violent uncensored fight video, please get back to
me as soon as you can, as our production schedule is extremely short.
Please feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think may have
something we can use.
Thank you,
Teddy Cannon
Producer
310 828-1811 x1024
tcannon@asmithco.com

And he wants this stuff for free? Tell him to blow. You still need releases unless this is out of country or a legit news program.

You could check in their website >>> http://www.asmithco.com/<<< to see what´s this all about...
It doesn´t say anywhere that they want the videos for free... and the site seems ok (well maybe a little to simple)...
Although it´s kind of strange aproach to find footage...

I wish my mom would have taped me and my brothers.... if they are paying she would have made a lot of money...

Actually, I have a few hundred rounds of footage and interviews that would fall into the Fight Club category. How would I even go about setting this up?

It sounds too much like Bum Fights, only they want someone else to get the footage for them. That alone feels like a legal nightmare waiting to happen.

Hmmm. I'm totally naive. What kind of legal nightmare?
I have lots of footage of voluntary fights between about fifty people taped over the last few years. After each round is
a brief interview of both participants. Am I going to see some trouble?

It sounds like the typical extremely poor taste programming that seems to be popular. Next thing you know someone will be doing a show called "Rubbernecker" with footage of traffic accidents. Quality be damned, bloodlust pays the bills.

What Adrian says...!

If you guys have all this footage, and don't care what it gets made into, why not just put out your own fight video and keep these other vultures...er..filmmakers, from getting rich off it

Well, I already have the footage as a result of my martial arts activities. I decided that the usual dojo location wasn't quite right for the type of fighting I wanted to do. Anyway, it has
been an educational experience. I've made over a dozen DVDs
this year, but I have fifty or so sessions made over the last three
years.

Honestly, I am a candidate for the "poor taste" programming involving real fights. Some are interested in the mayhem. I really want to assess the average physical confrontation.

Dylan,

I don't think that there is much of a market for the fight footage I have. In this day and age, it will simply be copied, ripped, whatever. However, I would be quite pleased about the exposure and perhaps a chance to cover the thousands of $ I've spent on the activity.

unless these fights are on public property, you need participents permission.

It doesn't matter whose property the fight is happening on; you still need the permission of anyone who is recognizably in the video.

>It doesn't matter whose property the fight is happening on; you >still need the permission of anyone who is recognizably in the >video.

Given all of the news coverage of mass riots on public property and video surveilance cameras on private property, I can't believe this is practice. Are the news channels following the law?

I'm pretty sure if you are planning to market and sell the video that you are not covered by fair use. News organizations already have the experience and the legal backing to protect themselves. If you buy footage from news organizations that footage has already been cleared. You should note also that the COPS people definitely get releases from everyone which is surprising seeing as many of the people are shown with clear identification. Those that don't sign releases get the blurry faces. And who knows how many events didn't pass legal muster. Also, we also have no idea how much time has passed since the event and the distribution of the video. In many cases court time has passed (not talking about lawsuit, talking about criminal court time). When you record a fight you are, of course, recording an assault in progress.

I come from a news background, hence my position.
Every single lawsuit threat against me was an empty gesture by frustarted people. i still think thier might be an inherent right to use anything that happens on public property. unless you legally protect it, you have no right to your identity.

COPS was propably just avoiding the cost of going to court everytime someone filed on them.