Not sure if this is the right place to pose this question, but here goes. I posted a video of a musical performance of the band Sons Of Champlin from a 1977 episode of TV show The Midnight Special on youtube. It came from an original broadcast I had traded for through this hobby. I have put up several clips of vintage TV commercials and bumpers and I know other traders have done so too. My understanding of copyright law is that that is a fair use and obviously there is no intent to infringe upon any copyright holder's rights.

Anyway, I just received the following message on youtube:

"Hi,

I was asked by Bill Champlin's publicist to email you regarding this video. There is a museum in Marin that is doing a show and wants to include some old Sons footage. This video would be perfect for it. How could we go about getting a copy?
Thanks in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing from you.

Lisa"

I was wondering if anyone here has had anything like this happen and whether I should be worried that this is some kind of setup to accuse me of copyright violation. I don't know whether to respond. I know that the whole concept of trading copyrighted material as well as posting any of it online is a little murky so I was just looking for a little input from the forum members.

Thanks

my guess is that this is public domain but if not, you should just upload it somewhere and give them the link.

you can say that's where you downloaded it so they really can't set you up.

I don't know why a publicist would want to "set you up" for copyright infringement, since you're not making money by posting the clip to YouTube. Usually if someone has a problem with something posted on YouTube, it's just blocked or removed. And typically the ones who may own the copyrights (if it isn't public domain) would be a production company or distributor, which means you would likely hear from an LLC or lawyer, but most likely NOT someone representing a member of the featured band.

If it makes you feel any better, it appears the Marin Museum project is legitimate, as I found this link for it!

Marin Rocks Exhibit (http://www.marinhistory.org/marinrocks.html)

Thanks for the input. I feel pretty sure it's legitimate but I guess I was just being a little paranoid.

I get these type of requests all the time. Usually, it is somebody who appeared on a game show I have or something of that nature. I've sent out a few freebies when I first started getting these type of requests, but they got so frequent that I had to stop. But yeah, somebody who you wouldn't think of as being famous wants a copy of their episode, or their relative wants to get it for them. Most of the time, they have nothing at all to trade. I'm not complaining about these people, they haven't done anything wrong, but that's just what the reality is.

If someone is selling mass quantities of retail copied dvd's, then the authorities might take interest, but trading stuff recorded off tv is okayed under "time shifting" laws, and I'm 99.99% sure you won't have to worry about a knock on your door from the Feds.