Beating Photog: More Cash

Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: June 06, 1991

LOS ANGELES — The amateur cameraman who videotaped the beating of Rodney King has threatened to file a $100 million lawsuit for copyright infringement against Los Angeles television station KTLA and other stations that aired his footage of the beating.

George Holliday - who grabbed his video camera March 3 and began taping

from the balcony of his suburban Lake View Terrace apartment as Los Angeles Police Department officers beat King - said yesterday that he has demanded payment from more than 900 stations that aired the tape.

He has sent each station a letter asking for $7,500 for past usage of the tape and $2,500 for the rights to replay it over the next five years, as cases involving King and the LAPD proceed through the courts.

Holliday's tape, which has prompted a sweeping review of the LAPD, first was shown on KTLA - after Holliday contacted the station and offered it. KTLA officials paid him $500 and first broadcast the tape March 4.

Station officials also offered the tape to Cable News Network as part of their contractual relationship with CNN - which in turn made the footage available to other stations.

Holliday's attorneys said yesterday that he never sold his rights to the tape, and claimed the stations violated federal copyright law by broadcasting the tape without getting his permission or paying for its use.

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