Fox News Threatens To Sue Rivals Over Primary Debate

Fox News has been called out for apparently threatening legal action against unaffiliated media outlets that reuse more than three minutes of excerpts from an upcoming GOP debate in the seven days following its broadcast.

In an advisory circulating on social media—which Newsweek has yet to independently verify—the network reportedly set out stringent redistribution policies and warned that failure to comply "will be regarded as a violation of our rights and may subject violators to liability under applicable laws."

It adds: "Fox News reserves all rights and remedies in the event of any violation of its rights."

Newsweek approached Fox News via email for comment and confirmation of the document's authenticity on Friday. An almost identical advisory regarding a GOP primary debate in 2016 remains available on Fox News' website.

The network will host the first of two Republican primary debates so far announced, with the first taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 23. Fox Business will host another at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on September 27.

The first debate may suffer from the absence of the Republican primary field's current frontrunner after the Republican National Committee required candidates to have a minimum number of donations across 20 states and territories to participate and for them to pledge to support the eventual nominee.

While meeting the donor criteria, Donald Trump has indicated he will boycott the debate and has floated the idea of holding a competing event on the night.

The advisory, posted by multiple accounts on X, formerly Twitter, including by some broadcasters, notes Fox News' "exclusive media rights" to the GOP primary debate later in the month, and grants permission to use clips from the debate only under specific conditions.

As well as limiting the amount of content in the week following the debate, it says other media outlets must provide "an appropriate, unobstructed, on-screen credit... in the upper left or right hand corner of the screen during the entire debate excerpt" and that the clip "must be introduced with an audio credit: 'In a debate on the Fox News Channel.'"

The advisory stipulates that footage "must be taped directly from Fox News' telecast or obtained directly" from the network. Use on TV and radio is limited to news broadcasts and online outlets must embed Fox News' in-house video player.

Chris Stigall, a conservative radio talk show host, tweeted that the document portrayed Fox News as "treating this debate as if it's an NFL or MLB broadcast." He said: "It's not. This has never been done and deserves a legal challenge."

"These are REPUBLICAN debates, not FOX News debates," wrote Larry O'Connor, a talk show host and frequent guest on the network. He called on Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to "fix this right now, if she wants talk radio and conservative news outlets to spend any time informing the public about the GOP candidates for president."

Newsweek approached McDaniel via email for comment on Friday.

"This is insane," Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor, commented. "Fox is now threatening to sue all other networks if they air more than a total of 3 minutes of clips from the upcoming Republican debate during a 7-day time period on a show. 3 minutes total per show for an entire week."

Meanwhile, X user Blake Whorton wondered if other conservative outlets and media personalities might sue Fox News instead "for their unreasonable edict in relation to the Republican debate."

In the U.S., copyright law protects content owners from their work being reproduced without permission, though some networks allow for clips of their shows to be used by other outlets to promote their channel or the story.

There are exceptions, and the Copyright Act allows for copyrighted material to be reused without the owner's permission in certain settings, including the reporting of news.