[Mark Griffith]

Thanks for your replies, and thanks for the link Rafael. A lot of good info in there, mostly concerning raw footage.

In my case, the raw footage is obviously his. He gives it to me to edit. I am an independent contractor hired to edit his footage into a completed DVD to sell to his clients (bride & groom).

I read a couple of things in that link concerning project files, and they both seemed to think that as an independent contractor (not an employee of anyone), these would be your intellectual (creative) property. I appreciated the guy who told about giving his project files to a client and a few months later saw a slightly altered version appear commercially with someone else taking all of the editing credit and it ended up winning an award.

I am not so concerned with wedding videos, so I will probably just give him my FCP project files because they are really for the most part a one time use thing and I really value our relationship and the experience I am getting doing this, but I would like to know how to cross this bridge when it comes up in a more commercial scenario once I get to that level.

Mark Griffith