[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

[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

[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

[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

[Kyle S]

Seth,

How exactly do you figure copyright law favors him? He didn’t produce a project and then have this person buy it from him. 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. I don’t think you will get any argument that the client was the one who contracted the project, meaning he is the producer, and the project is his, if he wants his tapes, he should get his tapes.

Kyle

[Kyle S]

An ignorant sales rep, none of us have ever seen one of those before. Manufactoring a deck is just a couple of steps different from putting the tape drive in the camera. Cannon has never made a deck before becase they had no reason to. I am sure Cannon will recify whatever problems they must in a reasonable time frame.

Kyle

[Kyle S]

Tim,

Once upon a time I was teh head producer and chief Avid Editor for a large naional infomercial. I was completely responsible for the show (air budget was anywhere from $600,000 to $1,000,000 a week) and creating and producing all of the video tape products and packages. There were some things that went on and I suffered from a sever case of burn out and moved on to doing something else for a living.

I have had a huge urge to get back to my real profession, but I have no desire to work for anyone else pushing buttons or even keeping my own shop and working for clients. Everything I am dong now are my projects, I am the client, I may not make a dime but I am having a wonderful time.

As long as you keep the bills paid and are happy I thnk everything else is the old icing on the cake.

Good luck,

Kyle

[Kyle S]

Doug,

I don’t believe anything I said should be unclear. I specifically said if it is not yours or you do not own the proper rights, then you should not be using it.
This thread did not start asking about incidental taping, it started about building montages which would need sync rights. Picking up the cd from the client on a wink and a nod is not going to protect you if anything ever comes down. Sure at the moment no own has gone after weddings, once upon a time no one went after individual downloaders, once no one went after tv stations who were claiming they were covered by bmi and ascap. Oneday (who knows when) some wedding guy is going to get strung up by a record label.

It has been suggested in this thread (and others) that it should be fair use, yet when I ask a simple question, if I buy a video you made and take something for my own would that be fair use?, no one wants to answer. It is absurd for someone who makes their living creating things to either use or to suggest it is ok to use someone elses work.

Kyle

[Kyle S]

Peter,

I am trying to read youar post and it is just making no sense to me. Nothing is a “crime” or problem as long as you don’t use things that belong to other people or you do not have the rights to. Interesting that you’ve completelly avoided the question of somebody lifting your work as fair use.

Kyle

[Kyle S]

Peter,

I’ve read all of your post here and you are in a word, WRONG. The music is not yours don’t use it. Carted of to jail for it no, sued a judgment placed on which might ruin you, that is absolutely possible.

Sarcasm and parody usually exsist in some degree together, and parody has always been more protected than not, hence the final ruling.

Stop nitpicking words just because you know your wrong. If you wish to use copyrighted music you do not have clearance for feel free. Don’t suggest to others that it is ok.

Once again I will say that it is absurd for someone who makes a living creating things to suggest in any way that it is ok to co-opt someone elses creations for their own purpose and profit. You create a mice animated open for your weddings, someone I know has you do their wedding and I buy a copy, Its now on my disc so I can just freely use it in my productions. Fair use, right?

Kyle