ownership of work

[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Peter,

I don’t know how it works in Ireland, but here in the USA, if they paid you, then they own your footage and final deliverables. The subject of “copyright ownership” has been beaten to death on this forum. You’ll find all your answers and lots of opinions on copyright ownership if you do a topic search on COW. http://www.copyright.gov has lots of answers.

It sounds like this is a very low-end client and puts price near or at the forefront. They have served their purpose and it’s time to move on to better clients. Such clients are good for your initial portfolio and getting work from well-established, higher paying clients that actually want good production value. Since your client indicated that they are not going to hire you any more, I would ship everything to them and when they call for help, email them written estimates and charge them every time. Your written estimates and their verbal commissioning of work would constitute “work for hire agreements” and help ensure your payments.

Don’t take grinder, low-end, crappy seeking production clients at heart. They are nothing more than a stepping stone to your career path. Whenever you talk about them to other clients, colleagues, etc. say nothing but the good things and keep the bad things to yourself.

One last suggestion… I see you have posted many times here on the COW. You may want to take the time and fill out your profile.

Good luck,
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Craig Seeman]

[Bruce Bennett] “if they paid you, then they own your footage and final deliverables.”
This statement is VERY MUCH DEBATABLE but let’s NOT do that now. Such debates on the COW can be searched. Basically it MAY or MAY NOT be a “Work For Hire” but I don’t think anyone here can know that for you or what the practices are in Ireland.

I don’t know verbatim your discussion with her but given that someone there called you and you offered to help for free, I’d say she certainly doesn’t value your assistance . . . especially value added assistance offered with no additional cost.

I wouldn’t fight over the footage as I suspect it’s not worth it. Keep using what you have for your own demo purposes. I wouldn’t hand over anything additional (they haven’t asked so do NOT offer). If anyone from that place calls for assistance I’d say something like, “I have to clear it with your boss” and then contact her explaining someone contacted you from their office for a service and then explain what you’d charge. In other words, offer NOTHING for free and make it clear to her that you’ve been asked for help.

BTW if they’re posting your stuff on YouTube without the credits you might try adding them in a comments field unless or until they block or moderate the comments.

What is clear is that she doesn’t appreciate the value of your service. It’s time to use the demo material to find new clients.

[Ron Lindeboom]

This is a no-win situation. I would, as Bruce Bennett suggested, pack up all of their stuff and deliver it to them with a positive “thank you” for their past business and wish them well. As Bruce attests, they will likely run aground somewhere in the future and if you have ended the relationship amicably, they will likely call you when the ship hits the rocks. Bill them for everything. Don’t discount anything.

BTW, guys: Peter said that he is from the UK, not from Ireland. Northern Ireland may be a part of the UK but Ireland is a separate and independent republic and the laws of the UK are not the same as the laws of Ireland.

Personally, I wouldn’t care what the law is, I would end this as it’s clear that the person in charge places little value on your work and part of this is your own fault. You have given away your work in some areas and I will guarantee that when you bill them you do not show all charges at a full non-discounted rate and then add line items that justify a discount while still holding the client to a full value perceptually. It’s one thing to discount but it’s a “whole other beast” to discount without keeping a full tally of the “real” costs of what you do and keeping the client mindful that things really cost far more than you may have done the job for.

Better still: Quit discounting. Many here will tell you that they actually increased the number of contracted jobs in their business when they quit giving discounts. I know that Tim Wilson, for one, added nearly double the number of clients to his business when he raised his rates substantially.

For more on this subject, see the search engine for “rates” and “ownership” — as well as check the library for my article entitled “Clients or Grinders.”

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Remember: Burt Bacharach lied. What the world really needs now is an undo button.

[Peter Rooney]

Thank you all for the advice. And I will attend to the profile. Yes I live in Northern Ireland which to me is a geographical distinction but I’m subject to British Law. Well it didn’t end amicably as she has uploaded a ripped, crudely doctored, pixellated copy squashed with the wrong AR and removed my credits at the end. To my mind a shocking demonstration of spite and bad manners and unprofessionalism.
Good pont about commenting on UTUBE, I’ll look into it.
Thanks again
Peter

peterdewolf@picurpicture-multimedia.co.uk

[Mark Suszko]

Sounds like there’s a psychological/ personality component to this story that we only partially understand. My guess from reading between the lines and sensing your indignation is, that you came on a bit strong about the proprietary nature of the work, without a strong legal grounding for the argument.

You caught her basically “cheating” on you, called her out in her own office, and no matter how nicely you may have put it, she took that badly, and lines were drawn. I think you’re done there as long as she’s in charge. I suppose you could try going over her head, but that’s only going to make her hate for you permanent.

If you were a cruel and vindictive person, I suppose you could send a CAD request to YouTube to pull the clips for violation of copyright. The way I understand how this goes, Youtube generally pulls the clips immediately upon the first formal request, just on anyone’s say-so, to be on the safe side, and then it’s up to the disputing parties to prove who owns what before the clip is allowed back on. Which may take a long time.

Generally this tactic happens when someone posts a clip from a broadcast TV show, music video, or commercial and the copyright owners complain. Should this happen to that fine company, and their web visitors go to see clips that are no longer there, that might be bad for business. If you were to employ this tactic, and I’m not suggesting you should, I bet you would be getting a call back from the lady or her boss right quick. To her boss you can explain that this all got out of hand because the lady didn’t understand how things are done, acted unethically, if legally, and you’d be happy to make things right again at little or no charge if the boss would let you. But it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best, I fear. Pyrrhic victories are too expensive for businessmen.

No, I think your best bet is what the guys above have already laid out for you. Consider it like a no-fault divorce, send her all the stuff they paid for, and forget about them. If they come crawling back for anything, bill them quite stiffly.

When the management reshuffles at that place, if you left everyone else there on good terms, you might get a callback.

[Peter Rooney]

A very incisive post. A little presumptious but very close to the truth. I never ‘came on strong’, that situation/conversation never happened. It’s what I felt when I learned that they were ripping copies. That surprised me as I’d made whatever copies were reqiuired in the past.
‘I actually spent about an hour on the phone trying to teach the teccie how to do what he thought he wanted to do, at no time complaining, at no time asserting my indignation, but to no avail, he can’t do it, still cant do it, they found someone else to do it. There’s always someone.
I strained to be diplomatic, professional, businesslike but exactly as you described ( you must have been down this road ) she felt ‘called’ on the issue, railed against being ‘called’ and we are where we are.The whole office knew what was happening, employees mumbled about it. I’ve had an excellent working relationship with staff for several years but it’s finished.
Earlier posters where close to the truth, the more you try to be accomodating the more you encourage the assumption that you are a sucker. But some of the best work I have done was done because I pushed the boat out and went above my obligations. Of that I am proud. I’m not naieve, I’ve been involved in Art and Design,Multimedia for about 30 years and most of that experience has been positive. So it’s not the end of the world, but although my default behaviour is to be polite, helpful, accomodating and positive if I am abused I will bite back with a vengeance. A learned habit from growing up in 30 years of political and civil conflict.
Just like to thank this community, the COW for such a completely positive and constructive presence on the web. I attended University but did not study digital media at all, it’s all self taught and a lot of it has been learned here and at Ken Stones site. Thank you all.
Peter

peterdewolf@picurpicture-multimedia.co.uk

[Bruce Bennett]

[Craig Seeman] “If anyone from that place calls for assistance I’d say something like, “I have to clear it with your boss” and then contact her explaining someone contacted you from their office for a service and then explain what you’d charge.”

Very good advice 🙂

Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Steve Wargo]

[Peter Rooney] “crudely doctored, pixellated copy squashed with the wrong AR and removed my credits at the end”

You need to post a nice looking version on you tube with full credits and contact info.
Post a link and we’ll all go take a look and bring your numbers up.

Yeah, take care of that profile if you can. You can always add to it later.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Brendan Coots]

One last comment on the issue – on what grounds were there credits at the end of a work-for-hire piece? When a client hires a video company to create a work for them, the artist generally don’t get attribution unless it’s specifically arranged for in the contract, or even by verbal agreement.

If you did in fact have an agreement (verbal or otherwise) with them for attribution, you have a major issue here. They can’t just violate that agreement and remove the credits if it was agreed upon that they would be part of the finished piece. Sure, technically the video is their “property,” but that doesn’t allow them to violate the contract.

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Peter Rooney]

‘One last comment on the issue – on what grounds were there credits at the end of a work-for-hire piece? When a client hires a video company to create a work for them, the artist generally don’t get attribution unless it’s specifically arranged for in the contract, or even by verbal agreement.’

Brendan the credits were a list of funding bodies who funded the project, a music company who gave me personally permission to include their music on the video, and lastly my name as the editor, graphics, archive material supplied by etc.
If I do an entire shoot/storyline/edit/ dvd for anyone i absolutely reserve the right to put my name at the end of it.
Peter