Client wants my source material, but IMO, he didn’t pay for it

[Seth Bloombaum]

Kyle,

In the absence of a license copyright law favors the creator or author. Additionally, it is common practice in many creative industries for the creator to only license imagery used in the final production. Copyright heavily favors the creators and authors, that’s our system in the U.S. It used to be different.

Kyle wrote:
The buyer contacted him and he produced a video, as Tim pointed out earlier that is going to fall into the work for hire. The fact there is not a written contract makes things more difficult, but a verbal contract is just as binding in court, just more difficult to prove.

Sure, an agreement is an agreement, verbal or written. But Todd has a different sense than the client of what that agreement included. If there is information that would suggest that a verbal agreement included source materials, then sure, it could be binding in court.

Here we have a handshake agreement with two parties with different expectations as to what was included. From my understanding, guidance from copyright law is clear: It is only a work-for-hire if there is an agreement saying so, there is no assumption that it is a work-for-hire.

Whether it is good or strategic for Todd to take that guidance is a separate issue.

Typically, my written agreements specify that materials created for the project belong to the client. That would not include intermediate materials (client gets footage, not an EDL). But that’s not the only way business is done.

I’m not an attorney, and anyone who is writing contracts and licenses ought to consult a lawyer with experience in these areas, not advice found on the internet.

SB

[Kyle S]

Seth,
I don’t see this that clearly. He was asked to provide a service which he did. I think there is a valid argument that the producer (client) is the actual creator. The point is why do you need the originals? Depending on what the footage is actually of , often times it is not useful for anything else. It seems to me that his point is not really that he is upset that the client wantes his footage, but that he didn’t charge enough to begin with. I have done videos for performers and made videos and DVD’s they sold at their shows. The camera tapes were of no use to me, they could not be used for anything else. We did an industrial for a company which was about a patented machine they used to create circuit boards, again patented machine, footage was of no use except for the project. When you are talking about footage which was taken inside of their building with their people whats the point in arguing? You don’t have anybodys permission to legally use the footage for anything besides the project to begin with. Instead of the disagreement, why not try and find out if they have anything in mind for the footage he might be of assistance for? Let them know you can do other things and try and feel them out, maybe they want to toss some up on the web, though in this case I think we have well passed that point. Bottom line to me, you billed them for the tapes, they paid for them, they want they paid for.

Kyle

[Seth Bloombaum]

Todd (the original poster) stated:
It’s just an assumption of his that he own the rights to all my .aep, .max, and .fla files

We’re talking After Effects, 3D Studio Max, and Flash. What about Todd’s techniques and tools for AE, what about his primitives or textures for Max… Some of these might have been developed before this client showed up. Does the client have rights to those beyond this production? How about textures Todd bought and paid for – he’s licensed to use them in productions, but not to redistribute them.

We’ve talked about best practices for client relationships, but there is a lot of variety in what’s accepted in different disciplines and industries. Graphic design & 3D is usually different than videography.

Sounds like Todd is concerned that the client will take his work to another designer. He wrote:
the client also asked for “all source materials, in case we want to make our own changes later.”

IMO in graphics, in photography, in lots of disciplines this needs to be discussed up front. Standard practices from video don’t apply.

[Ron Lindeboom]

I agree with Seth on many of the points he has made: The rules of video, film, etc., often do not apply when talking about those in the compositing field.

As Seth points out in one of his examples, compositors often rely on licensed objects, stock footage, audio, etc., which they hold the licenses to and which allow them to deliver as part of a finished work but do not allow them to give copies of the raw work to others.

Also, a client is buying your time and your expertise. They are not buying the right to devalue your work by coming to you once, getting you to do a job and get the After Effects AEP file as a deliverable and then turn around and hand off that file to a high school kid to do the next job for them for peanuts.

Me, if a client wanted my AEP file, I’d show them the door. If they insisted, I’d show them the door right away. The only exception would be if the client made it clear that is what they wanted up front and they had it in writing that those were the terms. But it’s the door for anything short of that…

But hey, that’s just me.

;o)

Besides, if the guy is asking for all your source materials and the AEP file (as in my example), he’s not a client anyway and is about 95% guaranteed that he won’t be back anyway — so what would you really be losing???

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Kyle S]

“Also, a client is buying your time and your expertise. They are not buying the right to devalue your work by coming to you once, getting you to do a job and get the After Effects AEP file as a deliverable and then turn around and hand off that file to a high school kid to do the next job for them for peanuts.”

Here is the real issue, we can stop hiding behind “the licenses”. As a producer, I have requested the “files”. We had our own programs and whatever license was needed (or the willingness to aquire them). You insist this devalues your work, the person creating the files were paid for their work. Many times I walked off of a plane, found may way into the office with a tape, started editing, at 4 in the afternoon, made changes that included altering parts of the graphic package, output a tape from the Avid sometime around 1 or 2 in the morning, and found my way to the airport to hand the tape over to the Delta Dash clerk when they reopened at 4am. Courier pic up and delivery in New York, for a scheduled airing that evening. Your telling me I have to be held hostage by you to make the changes, if you can get to it in that time frame, with whatever rush charges you decide to lay on me, but then again I guess you would have told me to walk since I had the nerve to suggest those files should be mine.

Kyle

[Ron Lindeboom]

If you walked into my studio with all the tapes and materials needed to edit your job, that is what you would get back along with my work. You paid for it. But I will under no conditions take work which I feel devalues my work — at least not with my eyes wide open, I wouldn’t.

You are refering to editing jobs while Seth and I addressed the perspective from a compositor’s viewpoint — which is a whole different craft and discipline. What I described is in no way applicable to an editing job. When editing, I have never kept anything that belonged to a client, never.

But as a compositor, you would never get my AEP file, never. Not unless it was part of the bill and you were paying me for it and believe me, I would double or triple the bill as I know exactly what would happen with it if someone insisted on getting it.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

[Seth Bloombaum]

Kyle, I’ve been on both sides of that one. Perhaps I’ve not been burned as many times as Ron may have been. You should get what you need to get the job done, and you will, in a relationship with a vendor that is founded on trust. You’re not going to get it in a “low-ball, you’ve delivered me what I asked for now I want more” kind of relationship.

I work with one designer frequently – she always sends me her layered photoshop files because she knows I’ll be needing something slightly different than a single final composite and it’s difficult to predict what exactly I’ll need when I’m out for a client (lots of live event support). And she trusts, after knowing me 15 years that I’m not going to run down the street with her work and get it for a nickel or a dollar less.

On the other hand, if she or any other vendors perceived me as disloyal, it would only be their professionalism and good will that would get me through the current project, and I’d have a hard time finding good support on future projects because word gets around. They’ve (we’ve) all been screwed enough times, and the people who do it are definitely marked.

So, yes, you should get what you need. And the people working with you should get what they need too. And if you’ve got compositors and artists supporting your 3am stuff and willing to do it the next time too, good for you, they trust you.

This is all about avoiding an adversarial relationship. But (with some heavy reading between the lines) the original poster was asking “how do I exit this professionally, it’s not smelling right.” That client is gone. The client who is your best friend except when he’s screaming isn’t going to get much from me – I don’t have patience for passive-aggressive BS, life’s too short and I’ve already seen too much.

[Kyle S]

Ron,

I am talking about the graphics work, not the editing. There were times I needed to make changes in the Composites right now. I didn’t have time to see if you can get to it or if you were going to feel like doing it at midnight once I pulled all of the pics and video together. I know you understand that broadcast deadlines and rushing program changes are different from coporate work. We had an in house person who did our print work and I could force them to show up at midnight and make my changes. How was that going to work for you? My graphics packages were running between $10,000 and $15,000 (3 or 4 times a year), and your telling me I would have to pay you $30,000 or $40,000 for the right to make my own last minute changes. I am not sure what universe that would be either fair or reasonable in.

Kyle

[Ron Lindeboom]

Kyle,

Kathlyn would tell you I don’t believe in excuses when it comes to work: I once went three days straight without sleep to get a job done for a client who had been droped three days from delivery date by Computer Cafe who had the job and backed out at the last minute.

If you are good enough to do the job, then I would advise you to just do it yourself. It will save you a lot of money.

If you don’t like the way I do business, then I’d advise you to work with someone else. I didn’t ask you to agree with me, did I???

In business, one size does not fit all — sorry if that offends you,

Lastly, it is easy to make all kinds of claims as to what you pay when you are a near-totally anonymous entity whose user profile is empty except for a first name.

In the universe I live in, anonymity holds little weight.

Ron Lindeboom

[Kyle S]

Ron,

I am sorry you seem to have had so many bad experiences. Not that it matters but when I was contracting all of this graphics work I was runing an infomercial with a weekly air budget of 1/2 million to a million a week. There are reasons why I don’t discuss it much and as for anonymity, thats the way I have always been (too old to change now),

Everytime we had a product change or put out a new show there was a new round of animations, graphics, and composites that were made. I never had the time or desire to build all of that, but I did need the ability to make changes in some of the compoites right now. Often if we taped a hot testimonial I rushed changes out for our Sat morning airing on USA Network. Not having the ability to do that would have been out of the question. I always used people I knew and used them over and over. The one time I had to use someone different, they gave us a quote of $4,000, I argued with the money guy that it was about $10,000 worth of work and to not use them, he said no. They showed up with the work and a bill for $13,000. We settled on $7,000 and I stuck to the people I knew.

Kyle