On Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:57:18 -0500, Jill P. Dixon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>[s. We got no money,
>but an acknowledgement in the video and 2 copies of the video. Later
>that year, the documentary was selling at our local video store for $25
>per copy! In addition, we were never given the full scoop on who was
>narrating the documentary - it turns out to be a former director here
>who left under a big cloud and was a questionable historian at best! We
>were quite upset.]
Jill, if you don't stipulate your usage agreements upfront, then how is this "getting burned"? We have a similar usage policy,
which is that for publication, we either charge cost for a b&w or do loan agreements on original transparencies. We have a full
in-house photo studio & lab (which I work in), and the photo dept. maintains the image collection as well....we require the
institution to be credited upon publication, and a copy of the material as well...be it a video, magazine, textbook or whatever.
But in this case that you describe above, I'm not sure just how it is that you were "burned" by this production company....if I put on
my "commercial photographer cap" here, your institution did not foot the bill for the production of the video, pay for the
packaging or distribution or any of the associated labor costs, so how is it that you decide that you're entitled to more money? In
this instance, you as the non-profit (I assume here??) have to decide if you want to move into a more "for-profit" area and actually
take up these production costs and the whole thing...i.e. make your own video, package & sell it...or else, take a lok at the various
guild pricing like the ASMP/APA type books and decide on a scale of usage type fee for your images based on the demographics
of the patrons (users/clients), what their use is going to be, term of duration, type of repro etc....you in effect will "license" out your
images or artifacts.....but I see this as a real murky area for a non-prof to be going into....it's so much easier to just serve all patrons
alike: whether commercial or the general public...
FWIW, our images that we shoot in-house appear in everyhting from Time-Life coffee table books, textbooks, travel bropchures,
documentary videos, cd covers etc...I would never expect the institution to make a "profit" off the sale of these materials....a book
publisher or a magazine is the same to me as genealogist or a kid writing a book report....
>. On the
>other, how do you control for any misinformation or ask what the
>specific script is - in many cases I would assume the documentarian
>doesn't really know exactly how he/she will interpret without first
>doing the primary research. I am also wary of him shooting video of the
>documents and photographs.
Well, who's to decide what "misinformation" is?? Sorry, that may be a bit too heavy.....but one way (not that I reccomend this,
because who am I to judge a patron's taste or motive??)...one way would be to install commercial type usage agreements...and
really set in high prices as well....most institutions that charge a commercial usgae fee only charge a small, nominal one...this is
like nothing--zero--compared to a commercial fee that you'd encounter in the stock industry....a licensed fee for a single image
based on the distribution of a video, let's say in for half the country, or the midwest or whatever....well, you might be talking about
a couple of thousand dollars there for a single image.....you could pretty much cut out alot of potential conflicts with patrons and
gain some "control" as well...but then, to me, that's not what being a public institution is about....
Sorry to sound like so hard-nosed here...but I would be more woried about having outsiders come in to do the work...especially if
these are artifacts you're talking about.
As always, these are MY opinions....
Kent Thompson, Photographer
North Carolina Museum of History
Opinions expressed in this message may not represent the policy of my agency
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
