Re: Client wants my source material, but IMO, he didn't pay for it

I agree with Seth on many of the points he has made: The rules of video, film, etc., often do not apply when talking about those in the compositing field.

As Seth points out in one of his examples, compositors often rely on licensed objects, stock footage, audio, etc., which they hold the licenses to and which allow them to deliver as part of a finished work but do not allow them to give copies of the raw work to others.

Also, a client is buying your time and your expertise. They are not buying the right to devalue your work by coming to you once, getting you to do a job and get the After Effects AEP file as a deliverable and then turn around and hand off that file to a high school kid to do the next job for them for peanuts.

Me, if a client wanted my AEP file, I'd show them the door. If they insisted, I'd show them the door right away. The only exception would be if the client made it clear that is what they wanted up front and they had it in writing that those were the terms. But it's the door for anything short of that...

But hey, that's just me.

;o)

Besides, if the guy is asking for all your source materials and the AEP file (as in my example), he's not a client anyway and is about 95% guaranteed that he won't be back anyway -- so what would you really be losing???

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net