Media wants to use my time lapse footage

scobyobrien

Hey,

Just wanted to see if anybody has come across this scenario. For the past 12 months(when I had free time) I have been out an about in Dublin shooting time lapse footage.

Finished it last night and posted it to YouTube and then to my twitter page and Facebook page. All grand.

Its a 6 minute clip of morning/afternoon/night time in Dublin and spent about 250 hours in total and 0ver 10,000 photos. A newspaper contacted me, 7 hours after I put up the footage and wanted to put it on their online site but wanted my permission to do so, as I have stated so on my YouTube clip. No offer of money or anything. I read their terms and conditions and it stated that they could pass it on to a third party.

As I am new to this, I didnt know what to do so I asked him to ring me. I asked how much they were offering for it(as I want to sell the footage if people are interested in using it) and he then said, depends on how much you are offering. I didn't say anything, but he said that I would still have full ownership and they would credit my website/twitter page/facebook page and then he offered me €100. I asked would their be a contract to sign seeing as money was changing hands(haven't agreed to €100 by the way) but they want to shorten the video and put their own music on it and that no contract would be used.

Would I be foolish to allow this to happen without a contract in place. He said they would not use it elsewhere and again said I would be the full owner of the material. Or should I get my name out there, try ask for a bit more money and set out my own terms and conditions. Mind you, it could be seen by over 100,000 people, but I just have a feeling in the back of my head that somebody would be making money off my work and all I got was a very small financial reward.

Has anybody sold time lapse footage before?

Bacchus

I've zero first hand experience with anyhow like this so take the following with a fistfull of salt...

You've put 100's of hours into this not to mention the cost of equipment and now all your hard work might go for €100 without a contact to protect it.

If I was in your shoes (with that much effort in a single piece of work) I'd want a contract. Even if you take the small fee for the chance of exposure, get a contract. You never know what might happen down the line and it could be your word against theirs. Even from their side I would have thought they'd want it so you can't go suing them for using it without permission.

The money thing is up to you if it is worth it for the chance of reaching more viewers abut personally I'd look for a contract preventing any further distribution and locking down how exactly they can use it and can they use it again in the future.

The last thing then is that they want to hack it to bits and play their own music over it. Does that not destroy the integrity of your work. If its exposure you're after, how does their ravaging of your work achieve that. You may not want your name attached to what they produce.

deadanonymau5

scobyobrien wrote: »

Hey,

Just wanted to see if anybody has come across this scenario. For the past 12 months(when I had free time) I have been out an about in Dublin shooting time lapse footage.

Finished it last night and posted it to YouTube and then to my twitter page and Facebook page. All grand.

Its a 6 minute clip of morning/afternoon/night time in Dublin and spent about 250 hours in total and 0ver 10,000 photos. A newspaper contacted me, 7 hours after I put up the footage and wanted to put it on their online site but wanted my permission to do so, as I have stated so on my YouTube clip. No offer of money or anything. I read their terms and conditions and it stated that they could pass it on to a third party.

As I am new to this, I didnt know what to do so I asked him to ring me. I asked how much they were offering for it(as I want to sell the footage if people are interested in using it) and he then said, depends on how much you are offering. I didn't say anything, but he said that I would still have full ownership and they would credit my website/twitter page/facebook page and then he offered me €100. I asked would their be a contract to sign seeing as money was changing hands(haven't agreed to €100 by the way) but they want to shorten the video and put their own music on it and that no contract would be used.

Would I be foolish to allow this to happen without a contract in place. He said they would not use it elsewhere and again said I would be the full owner of the material. Or should I get my name out there, try ask for a bit more money and set out my own terms and conditions. Mind you, it could be seen by over 100,000 people, but I just have a feeling in the back of my head that somebody would be making money off my work and all I got was a very small financial reward.

Has anybody sold time lapse footage before?

To first answer your question, I never sold time-lapse footage.

Sounds like a s##t offer to me.

Full ownership and credit should be expected?!

If what he says is not down on paper, well thats no good to you is it? Or if you believe strangers, I have some magic beans that Id like to sell to you...

Dont do it OP.

scobyobrien

The last thing then is that they want to hack it to bits and play their own music over it. Does that not destroy the integrity of your work. If its exposure you're after, how does their ravaging of your work achieve that. You may not want your name attached to what they produce.

I think you are spot on Bacchus with this. I have no idea what it would look like. I purposely made it clear in the video that I didn't own the music and gave the website of the performer in a link.The video is tailored to that piece of music.

I 100% want a contract to be honest. I'm in my early thirties and will hopefully be doing this for many many many years to come. Exposure is one thing, but if they sold it to somebody else and all my time, money spent on doing this was for absolutely nothing

scobyobrien

deadanonymau5 wrote: »

To first answer your question, I never sold time-lapse footage.

Sounds like a s##t offer to me.

Full ownership and credit should be expected?!

If what he says is not down on paper, well thats no good to you is it? Or if you believe strangers, I have some magic beans that Id like to sell to you...

Dont do it OP.

Its like a dodgy second hand car sales man, they love you to bits so they get what they want and then after that, they wouldn't even know you. Let me know how many beans you have????:D

TheQuietFella

Do not sell your self short!

You have put too much time and effort in to this.
I watched a documentary during the week about a guy who developed the online booking website for Ryanair and he charged 20k for his services and he regretted not charging more because he felt he would have been successful!

While it is flattering to have interest shown in your own work I would look
for more professional advise and pay for it if you have to but don't let it go for such a insignificant amount.

peckerhead

+1 to all the above, particularly Bacchus' point about about giving them licence to alter your work.

DoYouEvenLift

€100 is nothing, but then again if they got ~100k views on the video with ads enabled they'd only make about the same back. And videos like that of Ireland don't gather much views anyway

Wabbit Ears

Id say thanks but no thanks. The request to alter your work would be a complete and utter dealbreaker for me. Its just someone who wants to take a cheap shortcut to get bespoke video and, while you spend hundreds of hours, they will spend a handful at most for the price of a hundred quid. You could offer to edit the work to their likes for, say, two grand.

magicbastarder

is there already music on the video?
if so, this would potentially explain their request to modify this aspect; they may be unsure as to whether you own the rights to the music, so this could be a wise move on their part.

FishOnABike

scobyobrien wrote: »

they want to shorten the video and put their own music on it and that no contract would be used he said that I would still have full ownership and they would credit my website/twitter page/facebook page and then he offered me €100. I asked would their be a contract to sign seeing as money was changing hands(haven't agreed to €100 by the way) but they want to shorten the video and put their own music on it and that no contract would be used. .

So they want to use your work to create their own work without any contract which would set the terms under which it could be used. You will have no input or control over the work they post which will be credited to you.

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Id say thanks but no thanks. The request to alter your work would be a complete and utter dealbreaker for me. Its just someone who wants to take a cheap shortcut to get bespoke video and, while you spend hundreds of hours, they will spend a handful at most for the price of a hundred quid. You could offer to edit the work to their likes for, say, two grand.

This. Just ask yourself how much it would cost them if they were to commission a professional photographer to create the video they want.

I would also want to keep creative control over any work I would be credited with and ensure a contract stipulated where/when/how it could be used, whether further derivative works were permitted and whether it was a license for a once off use or open ended.

ScumLord

You could always make up your own contract that allows them to use some of the footage and not pass the content onto third parties.

scobyobrien wrote: »

I asked would their be a contract to sign seeing as money was changing hands(haven't agreed to €100 by the way) but they want to shorten the video and put their own music on it and that no contract would be used.

I don't think that's all that unusual, companies use stock footage and pictures all the time, end users like yourself use third party filters. The great thing about doing work like this today is you don't have to do everything from scratch, half your content has probably already been create by others at a better standard allowing you to speed up your workflow.

€100 isn't a whole lot but if your not a well known person then it's probably fair enough given the exposure you'll get. It's better than nothing. I think your main worry seems to be that your afraid your handing off your work entirely for next to nothing and won't be able to continue to sell it to other people which I don't think would be the case.

Do make up a contract that secures your work, but other than that I'd go for it, your leasing out a small example of your work and it being on such a well known site is going to help you lease it again to someone else.

Greenmachine

Tell them to go hop. If they got in touch with you within hours of you posting the video, I suspect that you will likely get better offers elsewhere.

Silva360

I'd like to see it... please

I personally think low level exposure is worth nothing. €100 is also nothing unless you're on the breadline.

vandriver

Is this the one on the IT website?

scobyobrien

Well, I spoke to the legal department in my work and they raised a few good points.

The Irish Times wanted to stick the video up on their page basically. I set my own terms and conditions to them not using it or passing it on to anybody else with out contacting me. I also advised that the music they have used has nothing to do with me. There was a lot of T&C's I added and they agreed to it all and understood where I was coming from.

Since it went up yesterday, it has been shared over a thousand times and I may have generated future business from it as a few people have contacted me since then. They didn't do a good job on the editing and the music they picked was crap, but I put a link on their facebook page when they stuck it up and people have viewed the original that I shot.

There are pro's and con's to it all but it was a great learning curve for me in doing my first video. Hopefully because of it, it will generate more work for me in the future and I'm glad people liked the original I have on YouTube and not the Irish Times website.