Copyright your "EDITED WORK"

D

DVX100Shooter

Veteran
If a Producer comes to you the Editor and says I have all these tapes, and scripts for you to edit the project with. Can I actually copyright the finished project in terms of the way it was edited? I just finished editing a short Documentary that a Producer gave me all the tapes many of which were archived materials that she collected from other organizations here in the city. I didn't shoot anything just edited everything and I did all the graphics and compositing work as well. Someone was saying I should copyright the finished work but I am not sure if I can do that or not. None of the footage is mine.

I guess it would be like if PEPSI came to me with footage of a commercial they needed edited and after it was done I would want to copyright the finished project under my name in terms of the way I edited the commercial. I don't know if I can copyright my work in that instance....but who knows..

FYI: I just used PEPSI as an example of what I was originally asking.
 
If you were hired to do it, your created work is likely classified as a "work for hire", in which the copyright vests with the person who did the hiring.

If it wasn't a "work for hire", you're still likely out of luck because then your work could be classified as a "derivative work", in which the copyright still vests with the copyright owner of the original work (the original footage).

So I'd say that unless you had a specific agreement with the producer that assigns copyright to you, then no, there's likely no way you could claim copyright in the edited work. They would have to assign you the copyright in the footage you used, and if that hasn't happened (and it sounds like it hasn't) then you don't have the rights.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so take it for what it's worth...
 
Ok here is another ? along those same lines. I paid a designer to create a logo for my company. When it was completed I told her I wanted to have the design copyrighted and she sent me the copyright forms. As I am filling them out, it asks for the Author or person who created the work. Do I put her name down or put mine since the price of the logo included creation and copyright?
 
If you had a contract with her specifying that it's a work for hire, then the employer is the author for purposes of copyright (which would mean, you).

If there's no contract in place, then it gets trickier. For example, you can hire a photographer to do family portraits for you, but the photographer owns the copyright to the photos (unless you spell out that you want the negatives and the copyright, etc).
 
I do think that logos can not be copyrighted. I am pretty sure that falls under trademark laws.

check out:

http://www.uspto.gov/

As far as copyright:

"WHO CAN CLAIM COPYRIGHT

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author. Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as:

* (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
* (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as:
* a contribution to a collective work
* a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
* a translation
* a supplementary work
* a compilation
* an instructional text
* a test
* answer material for a test
* an atlas

if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire....

The authors of a joint work are co-owners of the copyright in the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Copyright in each separate contribution to a periodical or other collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole and vests initially with the author of the contribution."
 
ditto to everything barry said. as part of my 5 page production contract (yeah i know.. read it when you want to go to sleep) i specify whether or not rights and in what capacity they are transferred to the client for the project. in any case where the client retains the right to your original work for hire, you should specify in the contract that you retain unlimited and unrestricted rights to the material for promotional and demonstrational purposes though so you can use it in your demo reel and such.
 
So Barry are you saying that with no contract in place I would need to ask for her permission to use the logo she created for me everytime I need to use it...Letterhead, business cards, Music Videos, Demo Reels, etc? If this is true, I guess I need to contact her and have her write up a contract giving me permission to use the logo as I need to use it.

Rosestar - the cool thing about the $30 is that you can submit a bunch of stuff under the same title and pay only the $30. I do this with music I have copyrighted. It can be very expensive trying to copyright individual works of art.
 
DVX100Shooter said:
So Barry are you saying that with no contract in place I would need to ask for her permission to use the logo she created for me everytime I need to use it...Letterhead, business cards, Music Videos, Demo Reels, etc? If this is true, I guess I need to contact her and have her write up a contract giving me permission to use the logo as I need to use it.

Rosestar - the cool thing about the $30 is that you can submit a bunch of stuff under the same title and pay only the $30. I do this with music I have copyrighted. It can be very expensive trying to copyright individual works of art.
Click to expand...

From the language of the above "Who can claim copyright" it looks like that without a signed agreement as to work for hire, the claim to copyright would remain with the original "author", which would be the artitst you hired. Something like that could have to be decided in a court. I would get a contract. Good luck.
 
When I hired a graphic design firm to develop my "corporate identity kit," part of the language in their contract was that they keep the copyright to the artwork.

I had them strike that, and change it to say that it was a "work for hire". Which they did.

If you have no agreement in place, get one. It probably won't matter a hill of beans one way or the other, but someday, somehow, somewhere if you hit it big, something like this could theoretically come back to bite you. So just get a clear understanding up front, as soon as possible.
 
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