Posted by pduck on 07/16/06 20:52

In article <mjakb2tdhpct5fju0dc88o7m5bjab2cis0@4ax.com>,
Steve House <filmmaker.remove@this.cogeco.ca> wrote:

> 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.
>


Hi Steve -

When I shot the video I was going under the assumption that I would be
doing the final editing. That is the way that this client and I had
operated for the last ten years. They manufacture machinery on a custom
basis. When they complete a unique project, I would come in quickly, and
shoot it so they can send it out right away. We worry about how to
handle the video presentation at a later date. As I said, we have
always worked on just a handshake rather than contracts (I know, I know).

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