Re: a legal matter-- minors on radio or TV

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Could you nice folks settle a disagreement?  A student of mine at Emerson
>shot some video of a news event and a little kid was in the video.  I say
>she (the student) needs a parent's permission to use the child in the
>video.  But several other people I asked said there is no rule or law about
>when you can use the image or likeness-- or the voice of a minor-- that
>it's mainly a courtesy to ask a parent.  Can that be true???
<snip>

        I believe that the First Amendment covers a lot when the situation
is considered a "bona fide" news event. Of course, you can then argue about
the definition of that. But, for example, a TV station making video at a
fire doesn't need permission from people who appear in it, no matter what
age they are, as far as I ever knew. If the local cable-access camera pans
across the audience at the town council meeting, and some people have their
children with them, no permissions are needed to show the images of the
minors, IMO. On the other hand, going into a school building to do a
pre-arranged feature story is a different matter on which I'm a lot less
clear about the need for permissions, regardless of age. I think the
permissions issue is the same no matter what the age of the person in
question--the difference would be that if you needed permissions and the
people involved were minors you would have to get the parent or guardian to
sign.

------------------------------