Business screen magazine (1957)

The Law Behind the Screen « bv Howard Xewcomb Morse* Camera Equipment Company presents the new Magnasync Magnaphonic Sound Recorders The New MARK IX MAGNAPHONrC SOUND SYSTEM, SYSTEM "A" with built-in record play omplifier ond remote control assembly is an engineering achievemeni with exclusive features found in no other recorder. Hos recording, playback, and bios oscillator circuits enclosed in separate plugin ossemblies; easy accessibility to all amplifier components; pushbutton motor controls; remote control footage counter, recordpi ay & film-direct monitor switches. Avoiloble in 16mm, IZVjmm & 35mm priced from tj ^^J QQ For quality & economy MAGNASYNC is the perfect answer — to the needs of film producers, large or small, feature or commercial, because — * It delivers clean, distortion-free sound. * It is compact, lightweighl, portable, meets the latest SMPTE standards. serves every segment of motion picture and spot TV production. * Purchaser is not required to pay royalties on footage consumed. BUT MOST OF ALL, the MAGNASYNC MAGNAPHONIC line contains exclusive feotures found in no other recorders, yet all carry low, low price logs. Trust your own eors — trust your Sound Man's iudgment. Switch to MAGNAPHONIC SOUND. Model X-400 is o completely synchronous 16mm Magnetic film recording channel, professional in every detail. Con be operoted in "console" position, as shown, or stacked as one unit. Features simple camera or projector interlock, instontancous "film-direct" monitoring, and low power consumption. Ideal for the low budget producer. $985.00 Prices lubjetl to <hange without notice $1,5 70.00 ZUCKER (7flni€Rfl€cDuipni€nT^.jnc Dept. S 315 West 43rd St., New York 36, I*. Y. JUdson 6-1420 OTHER MODELS: MARK IX SYSTEM "B" includes Model G-932 microphone mixer with 2 channel slide wire attenuators. $2,820.00 MARK IX SYSTEM "C" includes Model G-924 microphone mixer and remote control ossembly packaged in matching portable case. $2,520.00 TYPE 5 features built-in Monitor amplifier^ separote overdrive torque motor, record gain control, and playbactc control. Priced from THE Following is a hypothetical case of interesting appHcation and consequences to producers of business films. A grocery company contracts with a film producer to install hidden motion picture cameras in its supermarkets to photograph the shopping activity of its customers so as to study and better understand the food buying habits of the public. Would this project be unobjectionable and devoid of risk from a legal point of view or would it impinge upon the right of privacy and thus subject the company to the danger of court action'^ There is no problem in the twenty-five states in which the legal right of privacy is not recognized — Colorado, Connecticut. Delaware. Idaho. Iowa, Maine, Maryland. Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi. Nebraska. Nevada. New Hampshire. New Mexico. North Dakota. Oklahoma. Rhode Island. South Dakota. Tennessee. Texas. Vermont. Washington, West Virginia. Wisconsin and Wyoming. But there is a very definite problem in the three states in which the right of privacy is established by statute — New York. Utah and Virginia — and in the twenty states in which the right of privacy has been developed by judicial decision — Alabama. Arizona. Arkansas. California. Florida. Georgia. Illinois. Indiana. Kansas. Kentucky. Louisiana. Michigan. Missouri. Montana. New Jersey. North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Establish Right of Privacy The right of privacy was first advanced in an article in the Harvard Law Review co-authored by Louis D. Brandeis in 1890 — twenty-six years before his appointment by President Woodrow Wilson to the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. The justification for the right of privacy has been that it is based on natural law. The Supreme Court of Georgia in the land-mark case of Pavesich vs. New England Life Insurance Company declared that: "Each individual as instinctively resents any encroachment by the public upon his rights which are of a private nature as he does the withdrawal of those of his rights which are of a public nature. A right of privacy in matters purely private is therefore derived from luilural law." What is the purpose of the right of privacy? To this question the Court of Appeals of Kentucky in the case of Maysville Transit Company vs. Ort answered: ". . . to protect the feelings and sensibilities of human beings, rather than to safeguard property, business or other pecuniary interests." The preeminence of human values over property values permeates all avenues of the law, as witness its recognition in a totally unrelated type of case — the Supreme Court of New York in the case of Application of Sacer Realty Corporation stating that: ". . . the court would ... be hesitant to permit consideration of property rights to weigh more heavily in the scale of values than a consideration of human lives." Case of Kunz vs. Allen Reverting to our hypothetical case, perhaps the nearest actual case to it was that of Kunz vs. Allen, in which the Supreme Court of Kansas recounted the principal facts in the case thusly: "While plaintiff was in the dry goods store of defendants for the purpose of making some purchases, the defendants without her knowledge caused moving picture films to be taken of her face. form, and garments, and afterwards procured the films to be developed, enlarged, and used to advertise their business." The Court held this to be an infringement of the woman's right of privacy. What is the reasoning behind the holding by the Kansas court and like holdings by other courts? The answer lies in the following extract from the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in the case of Donahue vs. Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc.: ". . . this statute does not undertake to forbid any. every, and all use of the name, picture, or personality of an individual without written consent being first obtained. It is expressly confined to the appropriation of the name. picture, or personality of an individual for advertising purposes, or for ptirposes of trade ... It does (CONTINUED ON PAGE 14) 1 • Phis new ISl'.SINESS SCREEN editorial fcnturc is prepared by le^al scholar and author, Howard Newconib Moi-se, a member of the bar of the U. S. Supreme Court, nnd contributor to many journals ami \n\\ publii ations. 12 BUSINESS SCREEN MAGAZINE