Shot The Shots

If you unexpectedly shot the shots at a public figure you admired, would you be haunted and not want to exploit the copyright work you captured? This was what happened to the author-owner of the silent-but-in-colour film of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963. Despite the film's forensic and extrinsic value, the author-owner got third party endorsement that he "handled himself with remarkable decency and common sense".

In a 9-line contractual licence dated Nov 23, 1963, the author-owner of the film granted an "exclusive world wide print media rights" licence to a media licensee for US$50,000 and agreed not to release "the film for motion picture, television, newsreel, etc, use until Friday, Nov 29, 1963." The same licensee got the full motion-picture rights from the copyright owner two days later for an additional US$100,000. The licensee paid the copyright owner in six installments of US$25000 each (over US$ I Million in today's US dollars); and the copyright owner donated the first installment to the widow of a police officer killed by the suspect after the assassination.

In 1975, in settlement of a public showing royalty suit between the copyright successors and the licensee, the copyright successors got back the full copyright of the film for US$1. Regarding Government use of the film as a documentary proof, the copyright issue was resolved via arbitration in 1999. A special arbitration panel of the Justice Department awarded the copyright successors US$615,384 per second of the 26-second film amounting to US$16 Million, plus interest, before the copyright successors donated the copyright and the film to a museum.

The news of the releases of some Kennedy files and papers has aroused my curiosity in researching into the copyright arrangement of the film. With a little bit of clues from the public domain, I now seem to have a good picture about the transactions and how issues were settled. I am of the view that the copyright of the film had been very well managed from the very beginning, and I believe I know the reason why!

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