News story appears to have used our footage?!?

Rick Burnett

Rick Burnett

Section Moderator
We just got a message from someone that they saw part of our live event coverage of DragonCon that we posted to our YouTube channel on television! Is that legal? We are more baffled than anything else. They used it as part of a story about someone who went missing for something completely different.

I know there has been discussions about this before, but I don't remember there being an answer.

This is the story:

http://www.insideedition.com/news/7...lle-parkers-ex-fiancé-as-primary-suspect.aspx

(No shots on the website)

Thoughts?
 
Hmmm, now I just unanswered my question, from the FAQ directly from YouTube:

"Can YouTube give me permission as a broadcaster to use a video in a television or movie broadcast?"

"No. If you're interested in using a YouTube video in your broadcast or movie, you need to reach out directly to the video's creator or uploader. You can do this by clicking the link on the user's channel that reads "Send Message," and asking the owner for permission to use their content."

http://www.youtube.com/t/faq
 
We just had a local news channel rip a promo I made for a youth camp from YouTube and use it during a story that they were doing about it. Personally I was stoked to get my stuff on TV, haha. If you're going to upload something in high resolution and you don't want it ripped off, wartermark it, I guess. Not the most aestheticly pleasing solution but you really can't stop people using it unless you're prepared to go through all that legal nonsense.
 
hi rick,

confirm that they used your footage....then send them an invoice for the use of copyright footage.

the going rate in australia was 60 dollars a second plus search fees and duplication, for broadcast use

you can be damn sure they would charge you for their footage if you needed it.

cheers

pure laziness ...to slack to go through their own film library for stock footage , much easier to rip it off the web.......
 
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I can top that. Several years ago I did a music video for country artist, Joe Nichols called Wal-Mart Parking lot Social Club. Pretty big budget. We had a huge stage set up in a Wal-Mart parking lot with the band and hundreds of people and choreographed dancers etc, etc... Anyway, we shot the whole thing, edited it submitted it to CMT and they conditionally rejected it because it looked to much like a Wal-Mart commercial. So we re-edited, re-submitted it and it was put into rotation. Fair enough right? End of story right? Nope! Three or four months later Wal-Mart decides they are going to take select new country artists on the road, to their stores to promote album sales in conjunction with CMT. Cool right? Well guess what footage they decide to use to craft their promo. You guessed it the original footage they rejected.
 
Wow. Yeah, there is NO question it is our footage. I personally don't like our footage being associated with a news report on a missing person case. Our material is humor/parody and a serious sad association with it using footage that the ONLY thing in common is its about DragonCon just bothers me. I hate thinking of people seeing our main actors now, who were the focus of this video we made, and saying "Oh yeah, I saw you guys on that missing person, possible murder story on TV!" But of course, it's already done, so nothing we can do about that now.

Heh, well can we say we've done broadcast material now :P Haha. And we did it with 7D material :P
 
I'm a musician too and one night during the credits I swore the song they used I had written. Turned out we used the same bass line sample in two different songs but I know the feeling. Mp3.com...
 
WhiteMonkey said:
I'm a musician too and one night during the credits I swore the song they used I had written. Turned out we used the same bass line sample in two different songs but I know the feeling. Mp3.com...
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This is why I hardly ever use loops or samples AT ALL in my music productions anymore, as I'd hear a sound that I used in other songs. Even on my synths, I start with maybe a built in patch and if it is going to be a major sound in the song, I go in an tune it SIGNIFICANTLY to get it away from that sound if the sound is really wide and full to get it to be more unique. (Ends up sounding better anyways).

And yeah, I use to be on mp3.com back in the day. :)
 
Have you done what Ian Dart suggested? That's your first step. Get that iron in the fire pronto..It will boil down to "do they think they are right" or "do they want the issue to go away". Personally I feel once things leave your fingers, those things can be considered gone. Watermarks anyone?
 
Does the Vimeo and YouTube submission agreement grant third parties a license to your footage? It should not, though you may be giving YouTube express permission to use same in their media. I would fire-off a letter to the station manager / news director through your attorney, where you detail that they used your footage without express, written permission and that the context in which they used it may have caused irreperable harm to your actors and those affiliated with the project. They should compensate you, at minimum, for the footage at the highest prevailing rate. If they are unable to renumerate you your satisfaction, you should let them know that you are considering litigation.
 
Erik Olson said:
Does the Vimeo and YouTube submission agreement grant third parties a license to your footage? It should not, though you may be giving YouTube express permission to use same in their media. I would fire-off a letter to the station manager / news director through your attorney, where you detail that they used your footage without express, written permission and that the context in which they used it may have caused irreperable harm to your actors and those affiliated with the project. They should compensate you, at minimum, for the footage at the highest prevailing rate. If they are unable to renumerate you your satisfaction, you should let them know that you are considering litigation.
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I will pass this along to the guy in our production crew following up on all this. We did not file for copyright, however, from what I have seen, this isn't necessary in the United States for protection. I will keep this thread updated on whatever happens.
 
Isn't there a choice of license type when you upload a video to YT? Never looked into it, but I always see in the info of peoples vids, "Standard youtube license"
 
Rick Burnett said:
We did not file for copyright, however, from what I have seen, this isn't necessary in the United States for protection.
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It's not "necessary" per se but good luck getting statutory damages or reimbursement for possible attorney fees if the work wasn't registered.

Rick Burnett said:
Google can grant permission to the news station to use it. I guess we could always ask if they did. Good to know nevertheless for people posting stuff to YouTube.
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I wonder if "grant permission" means "sell". That is the main thing I would try to find out if I was you, whether or not your footage was sold without your permission to a 3rd party.

The Youtube TOS are quite vague with regard to what "syndicated services" Google thinks it has the right to sub-license our content to for so-called "promotional" purposes. It's all worded vaguely enough to be dangerous.
 
The TOS says that, but the FAQ on the YouTube page says they are not going to give broadcasters permission to use footage. That's pretty clear and worded simplistically. We've reached out to contact multiple people at the moment and are waiting to hear back from them (and by them, I mean the infringers).
 
arroway said:
It's not "necessary" per se but good luck getting statutory damages or reimbursement for possible attorney fees if the work wasn't registered.
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Precisely. However, if your work was published recently (can't recall offhand if the time frame is 3 or 4 months) you can register as a published work and still collect those additional damages. Everyone who is putting their work on a public site should be registering their work unless they intend to give it away for free. You can register multiple items at once to save a few bucks on the fees, but at $35 it's still pretty cheap.
 
to the best of my knowledge, in australia copyright is automatic. when you create it you own it. copyright is vested in the creator and permission must be sought to use it.

send the station an invoice for the use of your footage. it then asserts it was your footage and starts a paper trail.

the worst that can happen is they pay you, if they dont you have a paper trail to take further action.


cheers
 
Rick Burnett said:
The TOS says that, but the FAQ on the YouTube page says they are not going to give broadcasters permission to use footage. That's pretty clear and worded simplistically.
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Clear, simple and yet in possible conflict with their own TOS.

I apparently have much less faith in Google than you do...

In any case, I'm curious to see what shakes out.
 
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