Use of iPhone recording not fair, says judge in 'Dr Phil' case

A former employee from TV programme “Dr Phil” has been unsuccessful in her bid to claim that an iPhone recording of a clip from the show was fair use as she planned to use it in a lawsuit.

Phillip Calvin McGraw, also known as Dr Phil, is the host of the daily TV show which provides advice to guests.

The case stems from a claim in 2015 in which the ex-employee alleged emotional distress and false imprisonment when Dr Phil allegedly locked staff in a room and “yelled profanities” at them for leaking information to the press.

The ex-employee then accessed a database of videos, and recorded a nine-second clip on her iPhone which she allegedly believed would help her in the case against the TV personality.

Peteski Productions, a company owned by Dr Phil, then copyrighted this material and was granted US registration number Pau003829623.

The company sued the former employee for copyright infringement in June 2017, claiming that she had worked on “at least ten shows” so she had easy access to “thousands of hours worth of material”.

Peteski claimed that the employee was using the footage to “smear plaintiff and extort money from plaintiff”, and therefore the usage was not fair.

Last week, on Wednesday, August 30, the court ruled that the use of the footage was not fair use and Peteski was correct to copyright the material.

District Judge Rodney Gilstrap said of the former employee: "She copied to aid her pending lawsuit seeking money damages where she is the only plaintiff and sole potential beneficiary.”

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