[Michael Novelli]

I want to throw a curve ball here. I own an ad agency and contract out for video crews. Typical practice was that I received all raw footage and have felt it was the right thing to do any additional projects with that footage with the crew I originally worked with. Lately, it’s been awkward with some production groups- they like to upload footage to sites like Vimeo that cannot be downloaded. Essentially, I can see and not touch. This makes me the client feel hostage- one production company increased post production rates exhorbitantly after the initial project. When I pay a day rate, I don’t just shoot for a 30 second ad. I want YouTube videos, social media clips, and maybe additional ads to come from it. I can hold to a gentleman’s agreement on being loyal to those that shot it, but I have been burned. Our solution is to buy better cameras than those of the production company and pay someone to operate them. Is this reasonable, or still a copyright issue?