When animals attack … Sea World Killer Whale edition
From the AP …
A Denver man seeking to eliminate the public airing of video of killer whales attacking him 20 years ago at Sea World cannot expect privacy after he once licensed rights to the footage to two television programs, a judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin wrote in a ruling dated Monday that it was unreasonable for Jonathan E. Smith to expect that footage of the March 4, 1987, attack by two killer whales in San Diego would never be seen.
Smith had sued NBC Universal, MG Perin Inc. and Universal Television Networks. Scheindlin dismissed the claims against NBC, saying Smith had offered no evidence to show the network violated his copyrights.
“As a matter of law, Smith could not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a video that he had previously licensed for broadcast on national television,” Scheindlin said, rejecting Smith’s claims that once-public facts can become private again.
“He doesn’t want his kids to see him being attacked by the big fish,” Stein said of the attack at Sea World in San Diego that left Smith with broken bones, a damaged spleen and occasional flashbacks to the moment when two whales tried to crush him against the bottom of the tank.
Smith gained ownership of a five-minute video after an audience member who recorded the attack with a camcorder visited him in the hospital and assigned him the copyright. Smith licensed the video for broadcast on two occasions, in 1987 and 1988, the judge wrote.
In 1994, Smith filed a copyright lawsuit after MG Perin distributed a segment of the television series “The Extraordinary” containing several portions of the Fox interview and 37 seconds of the video, the judge said.
The case was settled in September 1996 with Fox and MG Perin agreeing never to duplicate or distribute the video again without a license from Smith. The judge said Smith was paid $40,000 in the settlement.
In August 2003, MG Perin violated the agreement by accepting $200,000 from Universal Television Networks to license 10 segments of “The Extraordinary” including one containing portions of Smith’s video, the judge said. Smith brought the current lawsuit in February 2006.
UPDATE : Another incident caught on YouTube …