Stolen Footage

F

finchy

Well-known member
hey guys,

i recently stumbled upon a video on vimeo that has been editing together by a company using some of my footage....(which was literally chopped out of my video from vimeo)
It was shot at an event that the company in question organised, but i was paid by another company to document their section of the event...i had no dealings with the company in question!

Below the video on the vimeo page, they put copyright with my name, but i didnt give them any permission...

Basically, where do i stand? although the video was shot at 'their' event, no one at my end has given them permission to chop up my edit, and use the clips for their own promotional use.

I have never been in a situation like this before so i'm not 100% what sort of action i could take...


any suggestions/advice would be great!

cheers guys.
 
finchy said:
hey guys,

i recently stumbled upon a video on vimeo that has been editing together by a company using some of my footage....(which was literally chopped out of my video from vimeo)
It was shot at an event that the company in question organised, but i was paid by another company to document their section of the event...i had no dealings with the company in question!

Below the video on the vimeo page, they put copyright with my name, but i didnt give them any permission...

Basically, where do i stand? although the video was shot at 'their' event, no one at my end has given them permission to chop up my edit, and use the clips for their own promotional use.

I have never been in a situation like this before so i'm not 100% what sort of action i could take...


any suggestions/advice would be great!

cheers guys.
Click to expand...

What did your contract with the company who hired you say about the ownership of the copyright on your work? If it explcitly says your work is made as a "work for hire" your client owns the copyright and you have no standing. If that's the case, perhaps they gave the company in question permission to use the footage. But if it wasn't a work for hire, then you own the copyright and they need your permission to use it. Of course, if this was a private venue, you probably should have obtained THEIR release to use the images you recorded of their event - images of their logos, etc. so it may work out a wash in the end. Are you sure that you were legally on the property when you were filming? Just because your client hired you doesn't mean they were entitled to do so without the event organizer's permission or that they had permission.

If you own the copyright you can contact them and demand either payment or that the material be taken down. But depending on the exact nature of the event and your client's role in it that could open up a can of worms. Best advice is talk to an IP attorney and explore your options.
 
Even if you had exclusive rights to that footage, which you clearly don't, you would have to show damage to recover anything significant. "No loss, no cause" is a common theme, although not the absolute rule.

If it were a major brand using your footage, shot for someone else under a different premise, in a national ad campaign, you might call an IP attorney to discover your options. That the offending party is actually attached, if not twice removed from, to the event / project you shot doesn't make for a very solid case.

I would contact the company you worked for and ask them if they have transferred or granted exclusive or non-exclusive rights to the material to this third party and see what they say. Likely answer, yes they did.

e
 
It's not that big of a deal. You're getting exposure and being recognized for your good work. Suddenly making an issue out of it will make you a difficult person to work with and risk losing clients.

I would call up the company, find out who is responsible for putting that clip together, thank them, and ask if there's anything else you can do for them, or any upcoming projects in the future.
 
Of course there was damage, they took the video of Vimeo and edited it again (meaning compressing it again). They degraded the video and then put your name on it, it's your reputation at stake.
Second damage is loss of income.

But if video is not degraded to eyes of an average user, then you should take a road that pmark23
is suggesting, use the exposure, make a link on your website to that video...
 
Guys, intellectual property isn't free. Work has value and also the results of that work. Finchy isn't a charity - he didn't shoot the video for the exposure, he shot it for the cash. Someone else taking the results and using them for their own purposes without compensating him is theft, pure and simple. I don't know where people get the idea that "exposure" has any value when the rent is coming due.
 
As far as I understand, he was already paid for the work. It's the original client's "problem" that it's reused in a different context.

You guys need to chill and start looking at these things like opportunities. You'll never get a cent out of it otherwise.
 
pmark23 said:
As far as I understand, he was already paid for the work. It's the original client's "problem" that it's reused in a different context.

You guys need to chill and start looking at these things like opportunities. You'll never get a cent out of it otherwise.
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It depends on whether he still owns the copyright to the work or if he transferred it to his first client. Being paid to make a creative work for a client does not in itself means the client owns the resulting product and is free to do anything he wishes with it. Absent a written contract making it a work for hire or a written transfer of copyright, the rights remain with the person who created the work and what the client gets for their payment is a license to use it. Uses beyond that anticipated in the original contract require additional compensation.

Consider someone contracts for you to make a commercial for them that will run on a local TV channel. Later on, the client goes national with the same ad. Since rates for producing commercials are usually based in part on the size of the market where they'll be running, don't you think you'd deserve additional payment? Or how about you make a training video for a client and it's so good that the client starts selling it to other companies in the same industry, companies that otherwise would have hired you to make training materials for them, essentially competing with your training-video business using your own product against you.

Having your work used by someone without compensation is not an opportunity, it's a loss of product from your inventory.
 
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You know what it really depends. I bet somewhere in the event paperwork the organizing company said it was ok for them to do this and your clients probably signed it. Happens.
 
My main business is corporate and training videos in a closed market, and occasionally I see my stuff "stolen" -- even by my competitors. Great! Free publicity and recognition of my outstanding awesomeness. Also I now know who to pitch a project to. "Hey, I see that you've used some of my footage in your recent corporate. I can shoot some more for you if you like, and do something a little more... professional."

Seriously, there's absolutely no way you're going to make any money out of it otherwise, and will instead come off as someone "difficult to work with".
 
pmark23 said:
My main business is corporate and training videos in a closed market, and occasionally I see my stuff "stolen" -- even by my competitors. Great! Free publicity and recognition of my outstanding awesomeness. Also I now know who to pitch a project to. "Hey, I see that you've used some of my footage in your recent corporate. I can shoot some more for you if you like, and do something a little more... professional."

Seriously, there's absolutely no way you're going to make any money out of it otherwise, and will instead come off as someone "difficult to work with".
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You can't be serious! You value your intellectual property so little that once it's been shot, it goes into the public domain, freely available for anyone to sell without your permission or compensation for you?
 
Steve House said:
You can't be serious! You value your intellectual property so little that once it's been shot, it goes into the public domain, freely available for anyone to sell without your permission or compensation for you?
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The truth is there is very little value in a small amount of video shot at a corporate trade show. I mean really - what's it worth? $1000 tops? If the case ever made it to trial, which it wouldn't, it's not like the judge is going award additional money for pain and suffering.
Steve House said:
Best advice is talk to an IP attorney and explore your options.
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If Finchy contacts an attorney the attorney will send a letter to the offending party asking them to immediately cease and desist using Finchy's footage. The offending party will likely comply with the request and remove the video from the web site. All is well in the world until Finchy receives an invoice from the attorney.

Alternatively, Finchy could contact the company directly to resolve the issue, saving himself a couple hundred dollars in the process.

I'm wary of the far too often advice in this forum suggesting that a lawyer should be contacted immediately. Complete nonsense. A lawyer should only be contacted when the two parties cannot come to an amicable agreement between themselves. Even then it depends on what's at stake with the disagreement. If the amount of money is insignificant it's hardly worth the outrageous expense and stress of pursuing some sort of legal recourse.
 
That's a good point that isn't brought up enough. Even if you were massively ripped off, the first thing that gets sent is a cease-and-desist. If they stop, then tough for you -- you get nothing. If they don't then maybe after a few years in court you might get something, but likely the lawyer fees will be way beyond anything you will ever get and you'll be bankrupt.

You can't be serious! You value your intellectual property so little that once it's been shot, it goes into the public domain, freely available for anyone to sell without your permission or compensation for you?
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The exact opposite, actually. Nobody steals anything that has no value. I charge a lot for what I do, and anything that gets "stolen" has already been paid for.

Sure, they could have approached me and offered some money for the footage, but there's no chance of that happening because they could just as easily go shoot it themselves if they had the money. This is a very key point that everyone overlooks. The reason it was "stolen" is that they don't have the money in the first place. If they did they probably wouldn't buy it from you anyway.

As far as I'm concerned it's free publicity and proof that my work has value. Spell my name right and I'm a happy camper.
 
To wade in here a bit. The "ownership" of the footage in question is poss very fuzzy. The copyright on the edit is clearer, but they didn't use the edit they recut it. Were proper releases obtained from everyone in the footage, and music releases and, etc... Very likely not. The first thing that popped into my mind was that he wanted to get is copyright notice off that footage so he wouldn't get sued be the people in the video. Unless they signed a blanket release that allows the footage to be used for any purpose they probably have a more legitimate beef than the OP.

The whole IP thing is well it is important but people run around drooling talking about "my precious" a lot. Some stuff does qualify some really doesn't. If you can get paid again for it that is great but it's not like your Mona Lisa was nicked. For me it's sounds and I will admit that sound is a bit softer than picture, but both are essentially building blocks. I like my blocks and I think I have recorded really good blocks but blocks are not a house and anybody who hires a house builder because of their blocks is an idiot. Of course if your a block maker only it changes things but...

And I have to agree with pmark23. Indignation aside the absolute best you going to get from the courts is a pulldown order, and you can get that by telling the service provider that the content violates your copyright. If you want to get something positive out of it talk to the "offender" and work something out. If you do them the "favor" of not making them pull it down and they know you could you might get some work or a referral out of it. But I wouldn't get too worked up if you don't have all the rights issues sewn up. If you don't then guess what, you "stole" the footage in the first place.
 
Avoid the laywers -if you choose that route- and send a C&D note yourself. Search the topics on hvxuser, a good one was posted by someone a while ago.

Interesting the person who started this thread never got back and stated if it was a "work for hire" or not.
 
If it were me... I'd contact the offending company and work it out with them... Probably even offer my original footage to recut into their clip to improve the quality and just get something signed between us to make sure that in the future they contact me first and that they always give me proper credit.

You MIGHT pick up a new client (them) in the process...
 
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