Fox News Freaks Out After Release Of Damaging Footage Of Tucker Carlson

Fox News has sent a cease and desist letter to Media Matters for America, the group that has been slowly releasing unaired footage of Tucker Carlson and his disgusting comments (as well as his comments trashing his then-employer.) The letter claims that Fox owns the rights to those materials and therefore Media Matters is releasing them illegally. But that is protected speech for journalists, as Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

For the last week or so, the Group Media Matters for America has been releasing a series that they're calling Fox Leaks, which is material and information from Fox News that, uh, Fox did not want you to see specifically. It includes multiple videos of Tucker Carlson, uh, which as we all know, includes the video of Tucker Carlson trashing the Fox Nation streaming app saying nobody watches it. It's a horrible app. The website doesn't work. And Fox has finally gotten. Fox is at the point where they have now had their lawyers send a cease and desist letter to Media Matters, telling them We own that footage. You can't put it out there because it's our intellectual property. Let me read you this letter. Again, this is from Fox's legal counsel, uh, to Media Matters, president Angelo, uh, Caroni, my apologies if I'm getting that name incorrect.

Um, but anyway, dear Mr. Caroni, we write on behalf of Fox Corporation to clarify any misunderstandings media matters may have, uh, may have had regarding previously unaired footage that Media Matters has published in a series of articles headlined Fox Leaks. That unaired footage is Fox's confidential intellectual property. Fox did not consent to its distribution or publication, and Fox does not consent to its further distribution or publication. This proprietary material was given to you without Fox's authorization. Fox demands the media matter cease and desist from distribution publication and misuse of Fox's misappropriated proprietary footage, which you are now on notice was unlawfully obtained. We reserve all rights and remedies, meaning, if you don't stop, we're gonna sue you, but you can't. And Fox knows that, and I know the good folks at Media Matters, and they know that because this is protected speech. Now, while Fox does claim ownership of any content that airs on their channel or any content that is created to air on their channel, this particular content that has been leaked by Media Matters is of course not content that was ever supposed to air. It was not recorded as part of a copyrighted set of material. This was just the camera continued to roll as things were happening around the studio. You don't actually have the intellectual property rights to unaired and footage that was unintended to air. So you can claim it's your intellectual property all you want, but I don't think that's going to stand up

In, in a court of law. And even if the claim that it is, our intellectual property does hold up, it still doesn't change the fact that Media Matters has First Amendment protections, and you can't sue them for releasing footage that was released to them. Fox knows that. Fox knows that if they chose to go to court and try to fight this, it's a losing battle. You're gonna probably, as I said, lose on two different fronts. Media matters is 100% protected in this particular instance by the First Amendment. I mean that, that's why we have leaks to the press. So, you know, you can send all the cease and desist letters you want, but it's not gonna change. The fact that media matters is protected by this Constitution of the United States. You yourself, network have tried to wrap yourself in the First Amendment most recently in the Dominion Defamation lawsuit.

What you're really off about is how bad this makes your network Look, what you're really off about is the fact that this may give ammo to other lawsuits that your network is still facing. That's what's you off. That's why you're freaking out right now and sending these letters that you know, really have no legal bearing on media matters. You are terrified of what this footage is going to do to you, what it's going to do to those lawsuits and what it could do to the future of your network. After all, Fox News has been losing viewers ever since the Dominion lawsuit was settled. They're losing viewers because they fired Tucker Carlson, Ms. N B C, last Monday for the first time in God knows how many years, had more viewers than Fox News. Fox's scared and they know that if groups like media matters keep putting out this footage, things are gonna get so much worse for them. But as I said, I have interviewed for Ring of Fire.