The film footage of the fire at The Station Thursday night lasted just a few minutes, but those stunning, haunting scenes could live on in television and newspapers for years.
Within hours after Channel 12 (WPRI) videographer Brian Butler shot the tape, it was aired on CNN, through a distribution agreement between WPRI and the news network. Overnight, CNN made the footage available to hundreds of television stations, all with which it has similar relationships.
Meanwhile, through an exclusive arrangement that CNN carries with a company that provides images online, the same scenes were reproduced as still photographs, which were then sold to newspapers around the globe. The Associated Press also carried the still images.
All of this occurred with minimal input from WPRI, and will bring no income to the station.
"The tape is not being sold to anyone," said Steve Maurano, a spokesman for Channel 12 through the public relations firm of Duffy & Shanley. He added that Butler immediately offered the tape for the investigation.
"They have not made a penny from this video."
Channel 12 has had limited control of the film's distribution. As part of WPRI's "local-affiliate reciprocal relationship," with CNN, WPRI can delay the release of the footage to other local stations. Those that are not CNN affiliates, such as Channel 10 (WJAR), were refused the tape.
Net result: Channel 6 (WLNE) and Channel 10 cannot air the scenes.
"That's a pretty common thing," Maurano said. "If you have an exclusive piece of video, you don't want to give it to your competitors."
(WPRI shares management with local Fox Channel 64 [WNAC], so that station was able to air the tape.)
As for CNN's relationship with the online image provider, Getty Images, WPRI has little input.
Getty, based in Seattle, is the exclusive distributor of still images collected from CNN footage. The agreement allows Getty to capture and license footage from all of CNN's networks including CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn and CNN International.
Getty makes the images available for browsing, downloading and distribution on its Web site, gettyimages.com.
The price that newspapers or magazines pay for the images depends on the type of publication and size, said Linda Mills, a Getty spokeswoman. Getty did not respond to a request for specific price ranges.
But while Getty makes money from its images, Channel 12 does not. Maurano said the station is not involved in the CNN-Getty relationship.
Likewise, Channel 12 did not receive any money from CNN for distribution of the video through the CNN Newsource, a syndicated news service comprising more than 730 news-producing affiliates. Instead, it's the other way around.
"The station pays to be part of the CNN group. That means they can take stuff from us, we can take stuff from them," explained Chris Wilmore, publicist for CNN Newsource.
Wilmore said CNN fed the WPRI video during a scheduled feed overnight to its partner stations in time for use in the morning newscasts.
"As soon as we get it, we turn it around," he said. "I know this was one of those immediate turnarounds."
While Getty handles distribution of a lot of CNN's images, said CNN spokeswoman Edna Johnson, newspapers don't have to buy the photos. She said CNN would provide the images to newspapers for free.
"If you saw that fire on CNN and you called me, we would send you a grab of that," she said, noting that all images would include the CNN logo.
View a CBS News report of the fire including the video shot by a WPRI cameraman at:
http://projo.com
