-
OT-Someone’s asking for copies of videos I shot and edited
A company I worked with a few months ago for whomI shot a charity event is asking for digital copies of videos I did. They planned the event, a charity auction, as far as I can tell. I did the job for free, the charity is using the videos to get sponsors, and the only benefit I’ve gotten is a few hundred views on Youtube. I haven’t gotten any jobs with these groups, who are using the videos to promote their organizations, so think I should ask for a fee for the three videos, such as $100.
I realize they could download the videos regardless if they did some searching on how to do so, though it would be without my permission. I’ve never spoken to this person before or had any agreement who is asking for my videos, though I did work with his/her client, who was the event planner. I never had any agreement with them before about pay or non-pay. Would it be bad form to ask for payment now for this (I would do some slight recutting of the videos as well)?
-
14 Replies
-
-
It’s not raw footage, just the edited videos…but under pricing has certainly been a problem for me. I just thought of this, though-the person who ran the auction, for whom I was really donating my time and who ran the charity, said that she owned or had the rights to the video at some point. There was nothing official about it other than her asking me to add that to the video descriptions on Youtube. I still feel I should be compensated.
http://www.scenethroughglass.com
-
You should definitely be compensated for your time.
I don’t know what your day rate is but shooters in my area start at $500/day and go up from there, depending on gear and years of experience.
Editing is on top of that.
IMO, you’re not out of line asking for $100 per video.
At that rate, it’s still one heck of a bargain for the charity. -
It’s not even the charity, but the event planners. But ok, thanks. I’ll give them my offer.
http://www.scenethroughglass.com
-
There’s def. a difference between OWNING footage and having RIGHTS to it. It sounds to me that you OWN it, and she HAS RIGHTS to it…Therefore it is yours to sell AFAIK. Assuming you’ve already turned the footage/edit to your client, they should be ale to give it over to the third party.
Frankly though, you need to ask yourself how bad you need the $100 compared to the time and headache of dealing with this after the fact. If you’re going to shoot for charity, donate the footage and BE DONE WITH IT. Let them do what they want with it for their purposes. If they sell it for a Kraft mac n’ Cheese commercial, you have a problem.
hope this helps, good luck.https://www.triaxproductions.com
-
I don’t suspect it will be much of a problem. Either they take my offer or leave it (it’ll probably be more than $100). I don’t intend on shooting any free events again. I did them for about a year while I worked a day job and barely got anywhere. Finding clients who can pay me adequately in the first place has been a problem for me, the other being that the ones who don’t pay me and say they’ll promote me never refer me to jobs that pay, anyways. So it’s basically the flip side of the coin about finding clients who can pay, anyways.
I never had any agreement with anyone before the event. I put videos on my Youtube channel, made DVDs, which I sent to the charity and a salon who donated their services. That was months ago, and I figured I was done. Now the event planners want the video for their own Youtube channel.
http://www.scenethroughglass.com
-
The event Planner is a FOR PROFIT organization and should expect a free ride I wouldn’t think. What have you got to lose by asking for your share especially if they’re profiting from your work.
—————
My Hardware:
Core i7 2.67GHz; Nvidia GTX580, 12 gig RAM Win7 64bit.My Software:
Vegas Pro V11 with Boris Continuum Complete 7, VASST Ultimate S; Bluff Titler; AE5; PhotoPaint and other stuff. -
Charities or community TV stations will expect something for nothing, and then want more.
I spend about 100 hours per year doing camera and editing work for various Queensland scouting organisations. The money goes towards putting on live theatre productions for costumes, equipment replacement for sound and lighting (but not video – we use media equipment loaned by a University A/V dept) venue hire and props. There’s about 100 hundred of us, some who put in 400-500 hours because their kids are still involved or used to be involved.
I had no connection with the Scouts prior to this, but have learnt lots and gained experience from working with sound, lighting and video professionals using broadcast quality equipment. I did not walk away totally empty handed.
It’s always tough to charge a charity or community based organisation for work done, especially if there are others doing the same. I believe the charity still needs your consent to use any of the footage as you own the copyright to it, unless you unwittingly signed it away. They can risk not asking you, and you could rightly sue them, but is it worth the effort?
If you sell you work, is it going to be a ‘right to use’ only, or are you going to completely sell all rights to it. If the latter, and the footage turns out to be a money earner, you have no entitlement to royalties or such.
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
-
I’ve had the videos on my own channel online for a few months, and they’ve merely gotten a few hundred views (probably over a thousand if you put them all together, or right around there). I know the head of the charity is using them to get sponsors, which I don’t mind.
The event planners, though, expect me to give them free video (they responded to my request for payment) by saying that they worked for free at the charity and didn’t plan on paying. So did at least a dozen other organizations that volunteered their time, who all would probably like free video as well for their Youtube channels.
Anyways, this is the last time I do free work like this. It just seems like a low business move to ask someone for free video after the event-you wouldn’t ask a mechanic for free work, but it seems fine to ask that from a video guy. I’ve given so much free work that I can barely pay my bills. I don’t know why I’m agreeing to even send the videos they asked for, but I’m telling them why I shouldn’t, and yet will, anyways, but no more. I could just say no-why don’t I? Oh well.
http://www.scenethroughglass.com
-
Photographers have the identical problem, and schools emphasize the need to copyright your work, charge appropriately for any rights or work delivered to a client, prepare written documents which describe the limited rights granted by paying a fee, refusing to undercut your colleagues by giving your work away, etc. The bottom line is that the charity has no rights to your work unless you grant them those rights. That is what a copyright gives you. However, to obtain serious damages for unauthorized use, you need to properly register the work before distributing it. If someone demanded to use my work without compensation, I would tell them no and do so in written form.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up