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Selling video to National TV Show
This past weekend I was hired to shoot a wedding video. The wedding took place at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the area was severely affected by the Witch Creek wild fire. The LA Times was at the park and picked up on the wedding and featured it in their newspaper.
I got a call today from the Bride (my cousin) telling me that a nationaly syndicated TV show was interested in interviewing them and wanted to get some of my footage from the wedding and then possibly airing it.My question regards ownership/rights of the video. Do I own the video or would the people who hired me to film the wedding own it (It was my Aunt and Uncle so I shouldn’t really have issues)
And should I charge the TV show for the footage? What if they don’t right away offer me money for it? And if they don’t how much is the going rate that I could ask for?
Thanks,
Nick -
7 Replies
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I belive legally if it is your camera, your tape ,its your footage. Better check with a real laywer. Don’t expect to get a lot from a network. You might get $50. Unlesss you shoot something major like a plane crash or something they don’t pay a lot
good luck
Tom -
Hi Nick, I’m not sure what kind of contract (written or otherwise) that you had for shooting the wedding but usually the client that hired you for the shoot (at least in the corporate world) owns the tapes and footage. Be aware that this is NOT legal advice but just my opinion and common practice. I believe that the bride and groom own the footage of the wedding. Good Luck! Carey
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Key part here, “I was hired to shoot a video”. The video belongs to the person who hired you. They paid for it.
Don’t sweat it, if you got anything it would only be a dribble, maybe $50.
K
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Yep, I agree…the bride and groom likely “own” the footage itself…
However, if the television production company doesn’t want to take the footage from the bride’s DVD copy, but would like the footage on a professional quality format… well, you’re welcome to charge ’em as much as you’d like for the “dubbing service.” 🙂
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Nick,
This same question of
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I’m not a lawyer and don’t even play one on TV, but here’s my opinion/experience.
At one agency I worked at we had several clients across the country in the medical field. We did their TV and print advertising. One of the clients decided they wanted to go with another agency and told us to give us their tapes. Well, the owner of the agency told them they could have the tapes for a price. Bring out the lawyers…
In the end, the agency owned the footage and the client was left with nothing. Because it was never specifically spelled out in a contract that they owned the rights to the footage the ownership fell back to the agency that shot it. They were welcome to the finished show on Beta or another format of their choice, but the raw material/tapes and project files–nope. To further muddy the waters, the actor in it had a seperate contract stating that his likeness could only be used when the show was produced by our agency (he was getting well paid to be locked in), so even if we gave them the tapes they couldn’t use large portions of it because of his contract. The client left and went to the other agency with no tapes and no scripts because they didn’t want to pay for the footage. From what I heard about the other agencies pricing, it would have been cheaper to have bought the B Roll from us.
In your case, I’m assuming you own the rights to the footage but, as was already mentioned, the people in the footage have rights too. Your best bet is either to give the footage to the bride and groom and sign over the rights and be done with it, or talk to an lawyer who specializes in this kind of thing.
Good luck!
Michael.
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Just to add more , you might find this intersting
https://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair_use/
Tom
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