[Jd Christie]

Thanks Richard. I had an Entertainment Lawyer review the license agreement on the last project and he felt it was standard. He did not recommend any changes.

As for the 60/40 split, I did some research and found Getty’s contributor agreement online. They actually only give contributors 30% of the license fee. Getty requires an exclusive agreement to market the footage if you place it in their library, and so does this company. So from both of these perspectives I think these guys are pretty well in line with the industry.

The clip they licensed last time was a close up of my wife and daughter, outdoors at a park. They have said that they “did not make a great a profit” on that project. I can see that may be the case. Everyone deserves to get a fair piece of it, but it also seems to me that once they have discovered a videographer that they can market, their expenses to provide the content drop way off. Once you’re discovered and they know where to find you, all they need is a project that fits the content. As a “research company” their model seems to be more “go and find X for our production”.

[Jd Christie]

Richard, these are license agreements to the best of my understanding.

[Jd Christie]

Many thanks to everyone for the responses. I hoped for this kind of insight and it is much appreciated.

A little more information. This Content Research (CR) company is what I would call “boutique”. They specialize in what they call “archival and/or creative content”. In my experience they are also dealing with very large Ad Agencies with nationally or internationally recognizable clients. They are not looking for standard stock footage.

The closest thing I could find on Getty is their “Archive Film: Creative” sub-category. The samples I looked at for Unlimited Advertising usage range from about $3000-$6000 per clip.

My impression is this CR is trying to position themselves as a premium service with unique content. That being said, my footage that they are interested in is very common subject matter (it’s mostly of my family and friends). I don’t stage shots, it’s all very organic and shot in natural light/shallow DOF/attractive locations and I aggressively edit out uninteresting shots.

All that said, I think I probably DID get more than average for the MN clip.

I will definitely take the advice to ask them what they expect to charge for footage on average.

Once I know that, what do you think a fair cut to the CR is? Percentage wise? They have insinuated they will take 60% of license fee and I don’t know know how that compares to the other Stock footage houses.

Thanks again. JD

[Jd Christie]

Thanks for the response Brad. I am out of my element here so I am totally open to correcting my thinking. I believe you when you say that’s not how it works.

[Brad Spinoza] “BTW, we paid more for some footage that we used on a regional spot with a <$40K budget than we paid for other footage we used on a national with a $150K budget.”

So what was the determining factor in how much you would pay for a given clip? How much did you pay for a few seconds of footage on average?

[Jd Christie]

Thanks for the response Mark. This content research company is starting a stock footage library and has asked me if they can add my footage to that as well. My thought process here may be wrong, but I feel like the fee should be some formula of the total production budget for the spot. They have expressed interest in many clips from my portfolio and I don’t really want to get into a situation where I sell myself short.

If a commercial has a $500k production budget does it make sense for someone who contributes 10% of the content to be paid 1% of the budget?

I of course recognize the bulk of the creative work being done is by the agency, but there must be an agreed upon middle ground there.

Also these are non-exclusive agreements so I retain the rights to sell again at will.

[Jd Christie]

Thank you Rafael! This is exactly what I needed. Here’s my finished product thanks to your help:

https://vimeo.com/14058486

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