Broadcasting Scanner Traffic

[Phinupi]

On one of the days I actually paid attention in my media law class I thought the professor said that it's illegal to re-broadcast or record conversations from police scanners.
I've been trying to research this to see if I'm right, but I've had no luck.
Can anyone help me out here? Is it OK to re-broadcast scanner traffic in the context of a news story (not to use as a source of information but more or less as flavor to give the viewer some context of the hectic scene)? :confused:

[Too Much Time]

Actually it is illegal.
You may, however, obtain the consent of the license holder for the monitored station and then you can do as you please.

[Marty McFly]

I have heard that it's illegal as well.

Can someone explain why it is?

[Phinupi]

Thanks Too Much Time! But like Marty I want to know why it's illegal. Can someone direct me to the law so that I can read it. Thanks

[Too Much Time]

Somewhere in FCC regs it says this kind of transmission is a private communication.
Ask to talk to your stations communications attorney for the chapter and verse. I will attempt to look it up too.

[TXPhotog]

I'm pretty sure this should answer it

Why it's illegal (http://www.eham.net/articles/7711)

When is Recording Radio Signals Legal or Illegal?
Charles (KC8VWM) on March 23, 2004
View comments about this article!

This topic of discussion deals with legal issues pertaining to the recording, disclosing, and replaying of tape and other electronically recorded Amateur Radio signals.

THE WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS INTERCEPTION AND INTERCEPTION OF ORAL COMMUNICATIONS SECTION 705 (47 USCA 605) states that it is unlawful to disclose the content of radio transmissions overheard unless they are amateur radio traffic, broadcasts to the public or distress calls. It is unlawful under this section to use traffic monitored for personal gain.

Source: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/pIch119.html

While it is not illegal under this section to openly discuss details of a conversation with a third party that you overheard on Amateur radio frequencies, you are prohibited from using that same information for the intended purpose of personal gain.

"Personal Gain" is widely interpreted by lawmakers and this often includes related commercial interests.

One example might include a tow truck operator going to police calls heard over a scanner if a response has not yet been requested, or a taxicab driver using a scanner to listen to a competitors dispatcher calls. The taxi cab driver would race ahead and pick up those passengers before the other company's taxis would arrive at the call.

Another example, one might intend on using a persons recorded conversation from a radio communication from a local amateur radio repeater on a ham radio Internet website that charges subscriptions to hear these recordings. (Example: A conversation recorded involving a ham operator and an astronaut in space -- or similarly, a big on-air heated discussion that happened down on 75-meters a week ago etc... -- real audio format etc.)

While most may feel it might be appropriate in the first example and not appropriate in the second example, are there actually any laws that define these two instances -- or are all such recordings treated equally under the law despite the content involved?

One could argue in that by using a persons recorded conversation from amateur radio on an Internet website, this could be intended to further enhance that Internet website to attract more users to it for the purpose of personal or commercial gain.

When amateur radio transmissions are illegally used in this context, the affected individual may be entitled to civil damages resulting from the illegal use of these and similar recorded radio transmissions.

[Too Much Time]

Section 705 (47 USCA 605) states that it is unlawful to disclose the content of radio transmissions overheard unless they are amateur radio traffic, broadcasts to the public or distress calls. It is unlawful under this section to use traffic monitored for personal gain. This might include a tow truck operator going to accident calls heard over a scanner if a response has not been requested, or a taxicab driver jumping calls dispatched to other companies.

[Marty McFly]

That's interesting and thanks for the information.

I'm curious about 'personal gain.' Personally, I gain nothing from recording and using scanner traffic. My station might for a story.

But for me personally, nothing is gained.

I'm willing to bet that argument has been tried before though.

[omb]

I'd like to slap this on one newspaper writer in my market. She quotes what was said on the scanner when police don't tell her everything she wants to know. She sensationalizes so much, I'm waiting for her to go to work for CourtTV or Nancy Grace!!!

[Signature on File]

Hawkins vs Landshire: 1997, Section 8, article 3, paragraph 7,

Any transmitted radio frequency that is recievable to a scanning unit, unless otherwise encoded or scrambled, is considered open to the public airways as stated in Monroe vs Johnson, 1976. The reception of these public service transmissions is not protected by the previous doctrine regulating the frequency bandwith in which monitoring is allowed. The Scanner Handbook, vol 64, 1999, section 1, Title IV, paragraph 4, states that this is totally legal to re-broadcast radio transmissions from any scanning device which acts like a am/fm, vhf, reciever.

[Stack It]

Not only is it illegal, it's very poor journalism. And that's being polite, calling it poor journalism.

[2:30]

Marty-

You gain salary from your station. The FCC (and, I'll bet, any court) would see that as personal gain, within the meaning of the statute.

And it is, indeed, very poor journalism to use scanner traffic as anything other than a source on which to base investigation for a story. The traffic itself is almost never the story...

[Banned]

I've used scanner traffic (as nat sound) from police during a stand-off and it won me an award for spot news coverage.

[Another side]

Originally posted by H R Puff&Stuff:
Hawkins vs Landshire: 1997, Section 8, article 3, paragraph 7,

Any transmitted radio frequency that is recievable to a scanning unit, unless otherwise encoded or scrambled, is considered open to the public airways as stated in Monroe vs Johnson, 1976. The reception of these public service transmissions is not protected by the previous doctrine regulating the frequency bandwith in which monitoring is allowed. The Scanner Handbook, vol 64, 1999, section 1, Title IV, paragraph 4, states that this is totally legal to re-broadcast radio transmissions from any scanning device which acts like a am/fm, vhf, reciever.Yeah, I didn't think it was illegal ... stupid, piss-poor journalism ... chancy ... but not illegal. The difference, I think -- and I know there's an attorney or two around here that could probably clear this up -- is that scanner traffic is not considered "private."