Contract Particulars
As with most things in the AV business, contracting for services has some unique considerations. As part of general education for our clients, here are the several ways we can agree to work together.
WORK FOR HIRE
For short term, one time projects we typically execute a “Work for Hire” agreement. According to US copyright law, work done on a “Work for Hire” basis is owned by the client, and the client can claim copyright to the work and all the original material we create for it. This works fine for projects like photo shoots, video shoots, event presentations, or Website design and maintenance.
(Note that if you are hiring a photographer or videographer, unless the contract states “work for hire,” you do NOT own the images, and the photographer has the right to collect royalties for different uses unless the contract states licensing terms that cover all the uses you intend for the visual material. Be sure to talk about copyright status of images with any photographer you hire!)
COPYRIGHTED WORK
For turnkey projects that may have wide distribution, we will execute an “Agreement for a Copyrighted Work.” It stipulates that Advent Media, Inc. holds the copyright to the program and grants the client license to use the work in-tact in whatever agreed-upon form that the client requests. It’s the same form of licensing that computer software company’s use, only much less restrictive.
Allowing Advent Media to hold copyright is a much easier way of managing compliance with standing 3rd party agreements with our music, graphic and stock image providers. We will likely use elements from these vendors which are copyrighted. Our license agreements with them stipulate we can sell them as part of a finished work, but we are prohibited from selling them as standalone visual or audio assets, which they would become if we released all the component parts of a show to a client. Also certain assets, notably music, has use restrictions built into our blanket license, limiting the number of copies that can be made and broadcasting on public airwaves, unless additional fees are paid. If we know a copy count at the beginning, we can roll those fees into the budget, or handle them as part of a duplication order. By maintaining copyright, Advent Media is able to administer those rights for the client, making the process less cumbersome.
If a client wishes to use any of the original assets we create, our agreement normally grants license to use anything we make in any way, for the nominal cost of duplication, and if credits are on the work created, that Advent Media be credited for the assets used.
CLIENT OWNED COPYRIGHT
For turnkey projects with wide distribution, if a client insists we can create a “Conditional Copyright,” stipulating all the 3rd party terms by which the client must abide, even though they own copyright to the finished product and original materials. It gets very complicated. Also we are not able to provide archive copies of the copyrighted material from 3rd party sources. For this reason we usually discourage clients from this option.