Re: Who owns raw footage?

[Timothy J. Allen] "I could copyright a script about "a man who escapes his captures and goes on a quest to prove his innocence", but unless I'm very specific about how the story plays out, I'm not going to be able to claim infringement by any of the hundreds of other treatments and scripts with similar concepts. The more details you include, the better protection you have, but the more you paint yourself into a corner with your concept. The key is having a clear vision and being able to express it well enough so that people can easily identify your concept as unique."

Right.

OK. Real world. The AFLAC Duck idea probably started with their ad house - a perfect solution for a company nobody could remember. Client likes the storyboards and okays production. Need for a copyright at that point? I doubt it. What would it protect - a talking duck? Good luck defending that concept...

More to the topic - who owns the raw footage? 99.9% of the time - who cares? - it's unusable for anyone but the client. What about that footage of a happy couple? If unsure, shoot another happy couple - if you can find them...

Bottom line: a copyright or a patent is only as good as the amount of money you (or the other guy) are willing to spend to defend it.