Selling or sharing a video footage

[Luis Oscar Maymi]

Hello Videomaker community:

Yesterday (by some miracle) I recorded a power line exploding because a lightning hit it. I didn’t caught the lightning striking it, but I manage to record the rest of the “fireworks”. I consider this as an opening to sell my footage, so I call a news media and guess what, they laugh at me. They told me “we don’t give money for videos” and they only air the video if I decided to donate the video to them. This was not what I wanted so I politely thank them. I began to look on the internet and is indeed true, the news media don’t usually give money for video, they expect people to donate their video just because their names will be mention on television. What a stupid investment that is, unless of course, you use it to promote your company, but in my case my video company is just a baby. So I keep looking and I came across this page http://www.sellmyvideo.co.uk/index.asp so I decide to send them an email to see what happen, but I think this is too good to be true. I show the video to a few colleagues and they love it and told me to upload it to Youtube and spread it as much as I can, but what benefits will this give me? So here is the thing, which option could be more beneficial, sharing it or selling it? Another thing I was thinking was to copyright the video, should I do that too?

Thanks in advance to all Videomaker community

[birdcat]

I have used Pond5 in the past (http://www.pond5.com) but if you search the forums here, you’ll find messages dealing with where and how to sell footage.

[Luis Oscar Maymi]

Thanks birdcat, nice. I didn’t have luck with the video so I uploaded to YouTube and got over this dilemma. I’m happy because I learn something new from this, another day, another lesson. Here is the video, enjoy it and thanks for the help.

[EarlC]

GREAT clip, SargeHero! If you could have gotten something more steady it would certainly be something to keep in an eventual clips file collection for resale. That was some storm.

[Grinner Hester]

Sarge, all big cities hire freelance stringers. They count on em. You did the righ thing by thanking them and hanging up. Don’t give your footage away. When you have something of value on tape, you need to be paid for it and the price depends on that need.
In the meantime, I imagine if you contact an old client/friend of mine, Martin Licious at Prarie Pictures, he’d give you something for that clip. He sells library storm footage and is now doing pretty well at it.

[Luis Oscar Maymi]

Grinner:

I’m interested in contacting your old client. I visit their web page and their have some incredible footage. I write an email draft that I will send them, but I wanted to ask if you authorize me to mention you in the email before I send it.

EarlC:
I was reviewing the footage and I remember that when the lightning stroke I desperately change my camera angle to the place where the lightning hit. My left leg began to shake tremendously, so I had to put all my height onto the right leg and then my left hand began to shake, I was scared, but the adrenaline kept me going. Good times,good times.

[Luis Oscar Maymi]

“I show the video to a few colleagues and they love it and told me to
upload it to Youtube and spread it as much as I can, but what benefits
will this give me?”

Well, it does have benefits uploading the video to You Tube. I got contact by NBC wanting to buy my footage and I sold my video for $200 (not bad). The contract said that I will receive the money after they air the video for the first time, so someday I will received a check…someday.

[dagunner]

I was contacted by Discovery Channel’s Destroyed in Seconds earlier in the year for some footage of a racing accident I posted on You-Tube. Since I only had one angle of it the deal did not get closed. Now I have a second camera from the other side of the track. Lets see what happens next season.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sarge,

A good site is the new agency Beamups. They allow you to keep the copyright and have a couple of options to seeling your footage etc. Their site is http://www.beamups.com.

Cheers

Colin

[pseudosafari]

Well, I enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing it. Youtube is great for that. Perhaps you could edit it and put a watermark or icon on it so people know it’s yours, though. Also, if you sell it to NBC, do you keep the copyright of it and they can just use it as they see fit OR do they buy it, copyright and all (in which case you have take it off Youtube, etc.) I’m curious to know how they worded the contract. Cool video and way to go!

[Luis Oscar Maymi]

Pseudosafari

Part of the contract they send me says the following about copyright:

“I
represent that I am the sole and exclusive owner of all rights in and to the
Video described as <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>lightning strikes at Lake Charles </span>(the Video), and that the Video is
authentic and the events recorded actually occurred and were not staged in any
way.”

“In consideration of my
desire to have the Video used by NBC News, I hereby grant a non-exclusive
license to NBC News and The Weather Channel for use of the Video in The Weather
Channel program tentatively entitled <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Lightening</span>! and any and all
updates and/or revisions thereof scheduled for initial air on The Weather
Channel and for exploitation and distribution in all media now known or
hereafter discovered.”

“Owner represents that he/she has all rights in and
to the Video, including the copyright.
Owner agrees to indemnify and hold harmless NBC, The Weather Channel,
and their employees, parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, joint venture
partners, representatives, agents, licensees, and assigns from and against any
and all claims, damages, liabilities, cost and expenses (including attorneys’
fees) arising out of their use of the Video in accordance with this license.”

By the way, I’m starting to put lower third in my videos, but with information of the services my small business offers. It’s a good idea to do this because if a person download the video, they will have a hell of a time trying to remove the lower third or the watermark.

[pseudosafari]

That contract sounds good to me. They get the right to use it, but you retain that right, too, and you still own it. Contrast that to a submission to America’s Funniest Home Videos:”All submissions become the sole property of Producer and may be used in any manner, commercial or otherwise, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity.” (That’s from their web site. It’s reason enough for me to hold on to my clips.)

Putting the lower third on there is a good idea. If anyone tries to cut your info out of there, it’ll degrade the picture quality so much it won’t be worth it.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Great piece of video by the way! I cannot comment on the main subject – i.e. selling video clips but I can help re the Copyright issue you mentioned asI used to be a businessadviser in allIntellectual Property related fields.By the fact of your having created the work,copyright is automatically yours – you don’t have to register in any way. (full copyrightalways belongs to thecreator unless someone else haslegitimate claim overpart of the material or the way in which it was obtained, in which case thetotal rights thingcan get a little ‘muddy’.Incidentally, anyone who wants you to sign over your natural copyright in return for publication is generally right out of order and most will never ask for this. Hope this helps a bit. Keep shooting the fireworks!

Droog

[pseudosafari]

Another qgreement when submitting videos, etc., to another web site (this just illustrates a different agreement you might get; see the difference between this and AFV above):

To the extent that you own any rights in Content including, but not limited to photography and or video that you provide to CMere Deer in any form, you hereby grant to CMere Deer a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, paid-up license to use, copy, publish, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, create <span class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1266520796_0″ style=”border-bottom: #0066cc 1px dashed; background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; cursor: hand;”>derivative works</span> or otherwise exploit that is provided during your use of the Service.

[Anonymous]

There is an alternative method to selling your stock footage. Just try to get away from the idea of a microstock company where full control over your stock footage is relinquished. Try to picture owning your own microsite/microstock site without the high costs of development, high bandwith costs, and hosting fees. Emerging web technologies make it possible to own an e-commerce site specifically designed to present and sell stock footage with all of the back office functions to track sales, set prices, and even editing the licensing agreements on each clip sold.

For further inquiries email us at:scott.singleton@sbcglobal.net

Call 1-860-613-0700 ext. 452 <M-F/Hrs: 11:00am to 6:00pm (eastern std)>

[Anonymous]

Sarge, you could definitely profit from having that video on YouTube.

I own a video marketing business, and one of the things I do for my clients is bring their site traffic with YouTube.

Here’s how to do it in a nutshell: You need a web page with some kind of “call to action”, this would differ depending on your business.

You then put a link to your web page in your video description (just start the description with http://www.yourdomain.com) This does 2 things… 1, people can click on it and go to your website, and 2, google counts this as a backlink, and will rank your page higher.

Then put the keywords you want to show up for in the title, description and tag (just make sure not to spam it… it needs to sound natural)

Unfortunately, that video probably won’t attract your ideal customer… but hey, you might as well give it a shot =)

I hope this was helpful… good luck

PS: Awesome video btw

[Anonymous]

I have some one of a kind video footage I shot before and during Hurricane Katrina.  I have been contacted by a production company who is producing a series about Katrina they want to purchase the right to use the video in their series.  I am clueless about what the fair price should be.  I was thinking $2500 would be the minimum but then again it could be work $10k or more…  here is link to the video that caused them to contact me:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs8Uk-r9LEU&nbsp;

[HowardRobinson]

I think you have to upload your video on you tube or other channel it have many benefits as:

Vast Audiences for your Video.

Save Dollars with Free Video Hosting.

Links and Web Traffic.

Large Bandwidth and sustainability.

Easy navigation and supported Formats.

IF you want to make more money from your video then find a good platform to sell your video.

[Author]

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