Three times in two weeks, I had clients call with requests for the raw footage from earlier shoots I’d performed for them. In all three cases, they wanted me to send it to other production companies.

At the time, I felt compelled to say yes. Now, there’s a clause in our standard production contract that lets me tell them no. In the long run, it’s better to try and keep the rights to your footage.

Occasionally, I’d have clients ask for a particular clip, or some small bit of footage. That wasn’t a problem. It was almost always for personal use, and it made them happy. We like happy clients.

This two-week period was different. They wanted me to send everything, from the stuff that made it into the final commercial spots to the raw focus-pulling test footage — and send it to another production house who’d make their commercial.

At the time, I felt like I had to comply. In some cases, we’d produced the commercials without a contract. That was in the early, handshake-and-a-smile days. In another instance, we had a signed contract, but there were no stipulations in it as to who owned the raw footage.

I honestly had no idea who owned the footage in those situations, but in the interest of good client relations, I gave in and sent the footage where they wanted. After I did it, I resolved that it wouldn’t happen again.

1. In a business sense, you’re hurting your own bottom line. That’s footage that you shot with the intention of being the commercial producer, but someone else is now getting paid to produce it. They’re receiving production money you aren’t getting.
2. By giving away the rights to your footage, you run the risk that the footage could be worth lots of money at some future time, and you wouldn’t be entitled to any of it.* I had a photographer lament to me one time that “they made $100,000 off a photo I got paid ten bucks for.”
3. If you happen to see what the other guy does with your footage, you’ll either be really angry that they murderized it, or get despondent if they’re the second coming of Coppola and made something you could never hope to achieve. Neither is a nice frame of mind to be in.
4. You’re cheapening what you do. Would you go to a restaurant and ask if you could get a raw steak from the freezer to take to another chef to cook?

This all falls into some very contentious legal ground. In researching how to revise our contract, I found videographers who swore up and down that any time you’re being hired to produce a video, any creative material that comes out of it is legally a “work for hire,” and the person or entity doing the hiring owns all rights to the footage. Others said that the client only had rights to the work product, not the raw footage. Arguments were being had online that approached holy wars in their ferocity.

I decided to sidestep all of that by putting a clause in our standard production contract specifying that the client has all of the rights to the final product, but we retain all the rights to the raw footage. It’s only become an issue one time.

That one time was a doozy, though. We were incorporating some footage shot in-house by a large institution into a video project we were putting together for them. Even though their legal department hadn’t approved the contract, we forged ahead with the project. There was a hard-and-fast deadline, and time was of the essence.

Three days before the final, approved project was to go out to the world, legal called. They wanted rights to all the footage. Every frame I’d shot, every Premiere Pro and After Effects project. Beyond that, upon completion of the project they wanted me to transfer all of that to them — I wouldn’t get to keep copies of any of it on our server.

I said no. In a hastily-scheduled meeting with their attorney, I explained that the price we’d given them in the contract was based on our retaining the rights to the raw footage. We’d be happy to sell them those rights and all of the footage… but it’d cost them.

Time was ticking down. This was a project we really wanted to go out, because it was some of our best work ever. With less than 24 hours to go, we hammered out a deal where I’d return their footage, I’d keep my footage, and neither one of us could use the stuff I shot without permission from the other. It wasn’t ideal, but it made all of us equally unhappy.

The situation might have been avoided if I’d stuck to my guns and insisted that the contract be finalized before starting work. Problem is, I still wonder if that would have been possible. Their legal department sat on the contract for at least two months before even looking at it. If we’d lost that production time, the project never would have gotten off the ground. If we’d told them in no uncertain terms to sign on the dotted line before the “rec” button got pressed even once, it might have lit a fire under the right powerful people to make the contract happen sooner.

I have no idea. Guess we’ll figure out that one on future projects. They loved it, and want us to continue doing work for them.

The lesson? Keep the rights. If you don’t, make them at least pay a premium for it. And, for the love of all that’s holy, get everything in writing prior to starting work, just to prevent any eleventh-hour surprises.

* Why yes, I am a contributor to Istockphoto and Istockaudio. I received about $20 for a piece of music that was used in a multi-million-dollar ad campaign. I couldn’t be angry, however, because I knew that was the deal walking in. When you contribute to royalty-free stock content providers, you’re trading visibility for the miniscule chance of a giant payday. The producers of that huge ad campaign never would have heard my stuff if it wasn’t on Istockaudio, so it’s $20 I wouldn’t have received anyway. I’m averaging enough sales a month from Istock that it’s become my son’s college fund. They take their cut, sure – a huge cut – but I don’t have a way of getting my music out to millions of potential customers.