[Russ Rayburn]

You have some very good points. Once the footage is sold by the stock house to the client, they are supposed to only use it in their productions and not resell it or give it away to others, of course as you pointed out, it is possibly making the rounds and being passed from person to person and company to company. Many people in the business seem to ignore copyright, even if they agreed and signed the licensing agreement of the stock house. While this is very difficult to detect and enforce, I have been told that those who ignore copyright are taking a big chance, although they rarely get caught. Statutory penalties can be up to $150,000.00 per occurrence plus statutory award of legal fees.

The reality of this, as you pointed out, is that the shots scatter to the wind, and the world is a big place, but at least we should be able to hold the stock footage houses accountable to our contracts and to copyright law, it won’t be cheap and will take a few years.

Let me know if you have any experience with this.
Thanks
Russ

Russ

[Russ Rayburn]

Some contracts allow for audits, but at your own expense, unless you find a certain percentage of error, then they will pay for the audit. Some contracts do not address the issue of audit at all.
I have had the experience of seeing one of my shots on a national commercial,(Channel surfing is good for something) and was only paid once I brought it to the attention of the stock house, they were sorry for the mistake. I do have my suspicions, but it is expensive and difficult to prove anything. Now that shots are sold on the World Wide Web, I think the Wild West mentality is everywhere, most people think they can’t be caught. I have registered some of my copyrights, since I found out you can’t bring an infringement suit without it. Let me know what your experience has been. I do have a meeting with a forensic accountant later this week, so should know more soon. I would like to hear of other peoples experience with stock houses.

Russ

Russ

[Russ Rayburn]

I have a few stock footage contracts up for renewal. Most are offering as low as 15% now, but I was getting 40 and 50 % before Has anybody had any luck with these footage houses, seems like they are making buckets of money. Anybody know which ones are worth dealing with ? Any self posting sites good to deaL with?

Russ