Video

Los Angeles New Service v. KCAL-TV, 1999 & Los Angeles New Service v. Reuters Television International, Ltd., 1998. Both of these cases involved use by news services of video of the beating of truck driver Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In both cases, the footage, owned by a small company called Los Angeles News Service, which specializes in news footage, was used in news broadcast. The court ruled that the news services were re-using footage for the purpose for which it had originally been captured, to promote news reporting.

ABC's "Good Morning America" used clips from Robot Monster, The Brain from Palnet Arous and Plan 9 from Outer Space on a segment about fascination with extra-terrestrials. The court found fair use appropriate, because the clips had been recontextualized, in a discussion about the representation of aliens in popular culture. The court emphasized that the law "does not explicitly distinguish between entertaining and serious, plausible and implausible, or weighty or frivolous commentaries…"

Peter Graves: Mission Accomplished, an A&E cable network "Biography" episode about an actor, used unlicensed clips from It Conquered the World. Fair use was deemed aprpopirate because the material was used "for the transformative purpose of enabling the viewer to understand the actor's modest beginnings in the film business." It also noted that "A&E's biography of Peter Graves does not merely purport to supersede the original movie at issue, but to create a new copyrightable film biography."

Passport Video's 16-part video documentary on Elvis Presley's life used much material from television appearances, music and photographs. For instance, in this clip, the extended performance scene of Elvis Presley is unrelated to the interview voiceover.

AGAINST USER. The court ruled against the makers, most importantly because most of the uses were non-transformative. The purpose the documentary put the clips to often "serves the same intrinsic entertainment value that is protected by Plaintiff's copyrights." In this clip, the extended performance scene of Elvis Presley is unrelated to the interview voiceover

The TNT made-for-TV documentary, Ali-The Whole Story, used two minutes of clips from When We Were Kings. The court found that the material taken was small, both quantitatively and qualititatively, and that the commercial prospects of the original film were not likely to be affected.