hackertube.io

Verbatim: What Is a Photocopier? | Op-Docs

New York Times Opinion · comedy · Watch on YouTube

Law, policing & justiceDocumentaries & storytellingSatire & parody

What it is

A New York Times Op-Docs short in which actors perform a real legal deposition transcript. A lawyer gets tangled in an absurd argument with a county employee about what counts as a photocopier, in a dispute over fees for public records.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Commenters share it as a funny, memorable example of evasive depositions and of obstruction over public records requests.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2017, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “The NYT has an amazing video where they got actors to play out the transcript”

    Actors play out a real deposition transcript.

    ceejayoz, 2020-09 · Recommendation · in “Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition”

  2. “The New York Times did an amazing reenactment from transcripts of the legal deposition”

    Amazing reenactment of a deposition about a photocopier.

    wodenokoto, 2021-11 · Recommendation · in “Dealing with the Evasive Witness”

  3. “said dramatization is brilliant nonetheless”

    philsnow, 2025-03 · Recommendation · in “Sync Engines Are the Future”

  4. “NYTimes made a funny dramatization of a transcript from that case, pretty good.”

    Funny dramatization of a transcript about copying fees.

    vel0city, 2025-11 · Recommendation · in “Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: deposition, public records, dramatization, legal absurdity, nyt op-docs

Also recommended by the same people