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Posted by Steve House on 07/16/06 12:18
Still photographers in advertising and editorial work deal with this
sort of issue all the time and the ASMP has some excellent guidelines
for common practices that I think video folks would be well advisewd
to imitate. Unless you are the client's regular employee shooting as
part of your regular job (a studio cameraman, for example) or have a
written agreement stating that your shoot is a "work for hire" you own
the copyright to the images/footage. What the client gets for the fee
he's paid you is a license to use the images but he doesn't own
copyright unless you transfer copywrite to him in writing. What you
might think about for the future is to follow the still photog's model
and use a written contract that specifys the exact terms of the
license you're granting - ie, the footage can be used for a period of
6 months in TV commercials in North America only - use in Europe or
for movie theatres would require an additional license fee. Or triple
your rates, make it a work for hire contract and give the rights over
to your client.
That being said, I'm not so sure that your client is being so
unreasonable in asking you for the footage for someone else to edit
into the finished product. I wouldn't turn over the camera original
but a digital copy is an exact duplicate and providing him with a
duplicate of the originals wouldn't be out of line. It all hinges on
whether your hiring agreement with him was to shoot video of his
product or to produce a completed presentation or commercial ready for
release. You may have thought he was asking you to do the latter
while he thought he was asking you to do the former.
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 14:30:39 GMT, pduck <pduck.nojunk@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:
....snip...
>
>I did a little more research and found that the original content is
>owned by whoever creates it, not who pays for it (unless the creator is
>an employee or it is spelled out in a contract). Read this article for
>more detailed info:
>
>http://www.digitaljuice.com/magazine/articles/2006_034_vtx.asp
>
>That doesn't make things easier for me. It's like having the right of
>way when a bus is coming at you - you may be right, but you're going to
>lose in the end.
>
>I just don't see any way I can win in this. I'm thinking about giving
>them permission to use the footage on a one time basis, with the
>understanding that they will need to pay in the future.
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