American television directory (1946)

A LAWYER LOOKS AT TELEVISION Television’s lawyers will explore virgin territory in this new art and play a role of tremendous influence in molding the world’s social and economic future. _ By BERNARD GOODWIN Executive Assistant to Eastern Production Manager, Paramount Pictures, Inc. Vice President, Television Production, Inc. \N ith television progressing by leaps and bounds to the day when full-fledged commercial programs and countrywide and even international networks will be commonplace, its legal advisers may anticipate many headaches. It is im¬ possible, in this brief fashion, to dis¬ cuss adequately the many specialized legal questions which will arise. Some of these will be identical with those which motion picture and radio counsel have to consider. Others, of course, will very definitely be new and peculiar to the television medium. Copyright, censorship, civil rights or the right of privacy, interstate com¬ merce, unfair competition, labor rela¬ tions and taxation comprise some of the legal foundation from which television problems will spring. Legal counsel can¬ not be theoretical, in the sense of a classroom lecture or a law review arti¬ cle, but must use practical judgment in applying legal principles to the prob¬ lems presented by actual operation of the television industry. A lawyer must not only be wellgrounded in his knowledge of pertinent legal principles but he must also be thoroughly familiar with television as a business. This means that a lawyer interested in preparing himself as an adviser in one or more aspects of tele¬ vision should start immediately to learn some of the basic principles of tele¬ vision engineering and in some way obtain experience in one or more phases of the entertainment world. To illustrate, let me touch upon only a few incidental yet important problems which may be presented to a television lawyer in the course of a working day. High-Speed Decisions A production manager calls him on the telephone. “Next week the Joe Doakes program is going on the air with John Smith in person singing ‘The Call of the Prairie’ dressed in a cowboy suit and with a background film show¬ ing cowboys rounding up cattle. Now, this is an ASCAP song and ASCAP can give radio stations a small per¬ forming or non-dramatic right to use this song in a radio broadcast but not even ASCAP knows whether it can give a television station such a right for a ‘live talent’ program. Anyway, ASCAP tells me, even if it could do so, it thinks such a use on television may be a grand performing or dramatic right which ASCAP doesn’t even control for radio stations. If we have to go to the music publisher and to the composers of the song, it will involve time and negotia¬ tion out of proportion to the use we want to make. What shall we do?” The lawyer has to make his decision immediately. If it were a film television program instead of live talent the prob¬ lem would be more complicated by the question of the copyright protected right of recording the song on film, in addition to the copyright protected right of public performance. Here is where a lawyer not only has to be thoroughly familiar with his law but also has to know the peculiarly complex operation of the music world and the realistic problems of television pro¬ gramming, particularly when the pro¬ gram may be carried into foreign coun¬ tries by international hook-ups. Next, the sales manager may come in to tell his lawyer a pitiful story about how much revenue the television station is going to lose because the state censors in Blank State have heard about a certain program announced for release in a few days. They have served warning that television stations in Blank will be prohibited from telecast¬ ing it. It is impossible to comply with the Blank censors, the only censorship authority taking this stand, because the proposed program will be so weak¬ ened as to be valueless. Furthermore, the sponsor is angry and threatens to go to another station or network unless the situation can be cured satisfactorily. Any lawyer can immediately see the question of interstate commerce which is involved. The immediate problem is twofold: first, to get the program on the air in the next few days and, sec¬ ond, to lay the foundation for legal action or legislation which will make this problem less acute for the tele¬ vision broadcaster. Our next hypothetical problem might be a telegram from a television station in Texas, informing the attorney that the family of Tom Brown will sue everybody they can think of if a certain television program is carried by the Texas station or is received in Texas from a station outside of Texas. They claim the program libels Tom Brown, who has been dead for twenty-five years, by impeaching his honesty and reputation. In practically all other states it is legally impossible to bring civil action for the libel or slander of a dead person but by statute in Texas it is possible. A Jack-of-all-trades Even in some of those other states, as is true in England, it is possible to institute a civil action for the libel or slander of a living person resulting from false statements about the dead. Again the lawyer must make not only a quick and good legal decision but he must study the script of the proposed program and base his decision upon his interpretation of the script from a lit¬ erary and dramatic standpoint. In addi¬ tion, he must also be prepared to sit down with the writers of the script to show how it should be revised to avoid any legal difficulties, which revision must not be couched in legal language but in harmony with the literary and dramatic value of the program, and at the same time satisfy the writers, the sponsor and producer of the program. Late in the day an executive of the television station might call his lawyer to announce that negotiations in the long-pending deal with the XYZ de¬ partment store will soon be concluded and that a contract must be drafted the next day to provide for an interchange of programs, time on the air, leased studio space and a dozen other details. Questions of corporate law, tax law, real estate law, programming responsi¬ bility and FCC rules and regulations are immediately presented. A troublesome problem during nego¬ tiations could be the one concerning control of programming, which under FCC regulations must be retained clearly and absolutely by the licensee station, but the XYZ department store may want to have something to say about its programs. A legal solution must be worked out and again the lawyer must have a thorough knowl¬ edge of legal principles, FCC rules and regulations and the practical operation of the business. (Continued on page 115) 38