The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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Thou shalt not steal, even if thou art a big media conglomerate and the person you're stealing from is a construction worker who doesn't speak English

Pavel Hlava, Czech immigrant construction worker, just happened to have his video camera on while riding with his boss, Michael Cohen, in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and just happened to record both planes hitting the World Trade towers. That recording is the only known recording of both impacts, and one of only two that captured either, the other being what was originally intended as a documentary on rookie firefighters, produced by French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet. The Naudet brothers' video became the documentary "9/11", and you can buy a copy legally if you want:

Mr. Hlava's video, however, was not turned into a documentary. For whatever reason, he didn't do much with it, perhaps out of concern that someone, possibly his boss, would call him "an opportunistic money-grabber." By the time the second anniversary of the attacks rolled around, The New York Times acquired a copy and and made it available online, with the original Czech backround conversation replaced by Times reporter James Glanz saying, "This is unbelievable!" over and over in as many permutations as possible (obviously they needed an experienced, trained professional to do that job). It is unclear (to me, anyway) just how the Times got the recording, whether they paid for it, and which rights they acquired (The New York Times generally claims all rights in all media in all universes for all time for no additional compensation, and has already lost at least one case about that in the U.S. Supreme Court). ABC News also got a copy, and various news reports say they paid Mr. Hlava $40,000 for it.

Meanwhile, The Times also reports that Mr. Cohen, himself a Russian immigrant, threatened to fire Mr. Hlava if he sold the videotape. It is unclear from the news reports (at least to me) whether Mr. Cohen has followed through on that threat.

Anyway, it is clear from those same reports that the cable channel New York 1, part of the vast AOL/Time/Warner media empire, aired Mr. Hlava's video on Sept. 10, 2003. A lawsuit filed yesterday by attorneys for Mr. Hlava in U.S. District Court in Manhattan charges that Mr. Cohen gave a copy of the tape to New York 1, and named both AOL/Time/Warner and Mr. Cohen as defendants. The New York Post today quoted Mr. Cohen as calling Mr. Hlava "an opportunistic money grabber," but Mr. Cohen apparently declined the opportunity to comment for any other media organization.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Cohen. It was just chance that Mr. Hlava happened to record that news event, just as it was chance back in November, 1963 (presumably before Mr. Cohen came here from Russia, or maybe even before he was born), when Abraham Zapruder happened to have an 8-mm movie camera in his hands to record a glimpse of President John F. Kennedy as his motorcade drove past, and ended up with the only known recording of the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Zapruder sold his film to what was then known as Time/Life, now part of the very organization being sued by Mr. Hlava.

If Time/Life paid Mr. Zapruder, then in my (non-lawyer's, non-judge's, non-jury's, just-one-person's) opinion, their successor, AOL/Time/Warner, can damn well pay Mr. Hlava as well. If you'd like to see the Zapruder film yourself (that is if you're one of the few who never have), you can buy that, too:

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @10:30 AM

13.9.03