Re: Who owns raw footage?

Unfortunately, I don't have any real answers to this but yet another question. I generally have clients that want a short promovid but they have no vision of what they want. Since most of my work is for the Web, I use a license agreement that stipulates I retain copyright, I have permission to use finished product for self promotion, and they have license to use finished product, in its finished form. They're not allowed to re-edit and create derivative works. So far this has never been an issue, everyone has been happy with the finished product and go merrily on their way.

However, I just had a large corporation ask for ALL source materials. Since most of it was custom work (AE, 3D stuff) and can't be used elsewhere, I don't have a problem... except, portions of the videos also use royalty free and stock footage which I am licensed to use to make the clients video but I don't believe the client is licensed to use to make their own re-edits etc.

My thought is to give them the source materials that I created and a list of the Royalty Free clips and vendor and inform them they must purchase their own license for those items to be able to use them legally. Am I correct in my thinking on this?




Bob Russell
PromoBuilderBob
PromoVid Productions