COMMENTARY: As Abraham Zapruder shot his home movie on November 22, 1963, he had no idea what he was about to capture. Three days later, Zapruder sold the footage to Time Incorporated for exclusive reports in Life Magazine. The only time they loaned it out was to the Warren’s commission. They used the film to conclude that a single bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald ricocheted to kill the President. College professor Desai Thompson was not convinced. While consulting for Time Life, Thompson reviewed the footage. He thought it disproved the single bullet theory and that Oswald maybe did not act alone. He even decided to write his own book on this subject and titled “Six Seconds in Dallas”. When the magazine would not let him use frames of the film for his own book, Thompson used sketches instead. Sketches copied from frames that he took without permission.

IRWIN KRAMER: Time Life registered the copy right to the film, kept it under lock and key and never gave anyone permission to use it for other publications. Time spent $150, 000 for 26 seconds of history and they did not want the court to let anyone else use it for other books.

IRWIN KRAMER: So, did the judge respect Time’s copyright?

IRWIN KRAMER: It did. The court recognized that Time had a valid copyright, but it still would not pull the book from the shelves. According to the judge, there was a more important question than whether Time had a valid copyright? The question was who shot JFK? That is the question Professor Thompson helped answer with “Six Seconds in Dallas” six seconds from the Zapruder film.