Can I post a video I made for a college to my personal business account?

[Videographer2016]

I work at a public D1 university, and create promotional videos for the sports programs. Is it legal for me to take the videos I make, and post them on my personal social media pages or video sharing site? I’ve been told by the university to take them down. I don’t know how I would promote myself for freelance work if I cannot show off my completed projects.

[JackWolcott]

I’m not an attorney; that said, I believe the situation is this: you’re doing work for hire. That is, you are creating video for your employer. It’s my understanding of “work for hire” that the employer owns the work. Therefore, you have no inherent right to use the promotional videos you have created.

Your best bet would be to try to negotiate your name onto the videos as “editor,” or perhaps “producer,” or perhaps to refer to them as your work on your personal web site, with a link to the videos.

[paulears]

When I worked for a UK college, anything whatsoever I produced as part of my job belonged to the College Corporation, rights wise. The exception was when I was asked to do extra activities that I invoiced for. This was treated as a contractor-client relationship. However, here, the copyright was an integral part of the invoice – I produced it, they paid for it, with transfer of rights as one of the terms.

[Tshechu Dorji Wong]

Hi there, I am a documentary film maker from Bhutan. Also we do lot of videos for many organizations. Although we have produced lot of documentaries for different organizations in various fields, we don’t have anything to show of our own for taking to festivals and showcasing.
Whatever we do it is solely theirs as we were paid for that work. However you get some paper references from the organizations that you have worked for particular;y mentioning that work or if possibly get possible written permission from for showing purpose only and not for commercial purpose. This is what I do here in Bhutan and it works fine as long as you have good relation with that organization that you have worked with.. Cheers from Bhutan.. Tshechu Dorji Wong

[paulears]

Oddly – this happened to me this week. I discovered the original tapes from 1996 of a live band insert into a radio broadcast. I organised the live band’s contribution, but it was recorded in a college recording studio with large room, the radio station at the time operating from hired offices in the same building. Done in the evening, using some college students and staff to operate it. The band played for free, and the radio station lost their license and are now defunct.

Some of the old radio people, college people and the band members are on Facebook – so I mixed it and put it on Soundcloud. Rights? Who knows. Nobody at the college even knows me now. The band are split, the radio presenters dispersed. Loads of individual contributions, but I slapped the tape in the machine and recorded it with no permissions sought or asked for. The response on Facebook has been good, purely for nostalgia. As for the rights? No idea.

[maryannfarrugia]

Well i agree to him. If you want to showcase your work might as well get a permission so that you will they will not say to you to take it down. It’s just a referemce for your work and you will not sell it so i think it will be fine. Talk to them and and wait for the go signal so that it will be legitimate to show it.

Regards,
Maryann Farrugia CEO, Sales & Managing Director
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2IzUy8h90gE4OMHiBy2Rg

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