As video surveillance networks grow — and they are likely to, as venture capitalists are putting quite a bit of money into them — there are interesting questions about who owns the content. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority filed a lawsuit against YouTube Inc. and other video sites, demanding that a video of a car crash taken by the Turnpike Authority's cameras be removed from the site and arguing that the footage is upsetting for the family of a man who was killed in the crash.
The lawsuit and growth in Internet-based camera networks brings up an interesting idea about the ability of a public or semipublic entity's right to control content generated by its surveillance cameras. Can a Freedom of Information Act request open up such content? If the public, for example, is financing video surveillance equipment through its tax dollars, can the public entity actually own the content or keep it from being viewed by the public? As tasteless as car crashes and convenience store robberies caught on tape may be, there is certainly a market for them — albeit one that a government or transit authority would be loathe to capitalize on. —Stacey Higginbotham
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