Licensing your drone footage

[Alec Smirts]

Not 100% positive if this was the correct place for me to post this question on the forum so if it's not, please just let me know where I should post.

Curious if anybody has any insight or advice with licensing your footage? I have flown professionally, but I also enjoy just flying for fun and this has allowed me to license a little bit of my footage, but have been getting much more inquiries and it seems to end up being a negotiation. I tend to give what I believe to be a reasonable price and they end up trying to negotiate and I hate to lose a sale when it's basically mailbox money (I've shot a lot of footage and post it on youtube mainly as a hobby and have been contacted through that way)

My question is, should I set a specific price as per how much time they want, how many uses they plan on using it, license it as a whole (ie. If someone wants to license a specific piece from 1 location, should I just charge them for the entire package of shots I got)?

Any helpful advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks and happy flying!

 

[AnzacJack]

About the only advise I can give to to state your price up front, and stick to it, before the job.

 

[Alec Smirts]

These aren't "jobs" though. I have no issues when someone hires me for a rate. My issue is if I go out and shoot something just for the fun of it and I post it to youtube, I get a lot of people wanting to use that footage productions so how should I go about charging them for that?

 

[AnzacJack]

I don’t know sorry mate. I always give that sort of stuff away. I guess if it’s on YouTube, they can just take it anyway.

 

[macoman]

This topic raised a curious question that don't know the answer. If you created a drone footage in YouTube just for fun and then suddenly someone wants to buy or give you money for the right to use that footage, what type of legal steps we have to take?

 

[JoostGT3]

Not 100% positive if this was the correct place for me to post this question on the forum so if it's not, please just let me know where I should post.

Curious if anybody has any insight or advice with licensing your footage? I have flown professionally, but I also enjoy just flying for fun and this has allowed me to license a little bit of my footage, but have been getting much more inquiries and it seems to end up being a negotiation. I tend to give what I believe to be a reasonable price and they end up trying to negotiate and I hate to lose a sale when it's basically mailbox money (I've shot a lot of footage and post it on youtube mainly as a hobby and have been contacted through that way)

My question is, should I set a specific price as per how much time they want, how many uses they plan on using it, license it as a whole (ie. If someone wants to license a specific piece from 1 location, should I just charge them for the entire package of shots I got)?

Any helpful advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks and happy flying!

I have had that happen to me once, where a tv production company was looking for shots of a certain object, and they found a youtube movie I made about it. They were primarily interested in one particular shot. The deal didn't go through, because when we were finally on the phone, they had already been offered free use of a professional production of the same object. This allowed me to discuss openly (without money driven motifs) what the normal going rate was, etc. The outcome is that these kind of companies like to work with these kind of shots the way an advertising agency works with stock photography; they want to pay a fixed number per shot. The rate varies between higher and lower quality shots, and whether you have the raw footage available or whether they need to process the stuff they found on youtube.

(Edit: typo)

 

[FlyGuy8675309]

I'd put it in the Storyblocks/Videoblock marketplace or something similar.

 

[FASTFJR]

Be careful what you put on YT. 18 months ago I shot 4-5 minutes of video of an abandoned mansion. Long story short short a someone stole and used dam near all the footage. It just so happened a friend of mine recognized the footage and emailed me. The person had a few hundred thousands views when I filed the complaint with YT and they removed / blocked it. The guy freaked out, contacted me apologizing for days. At the end of the day he payed me a nice fee

 

[JSKCKNIT]

Be careful what you put on YT. 18 months ago I shot 4-5 minutes of video of an abandoned mansion. Long story short short a someone stole and used dam near all the footage. It just so happened a friend of mine recognized the footage and emailed me. The person had a few hundred thousands views when I filed the complaint with YT and they removed / blocked it. The guy freaked out, contacted me apologizing for days. At the end of the day he payed me a nice fee

Glad he apologized and paid you and didn't try to argue with you that the footage was his and you stole it from him!! Yep, had that happen!

 

[KennyJr]

Be careful what you put on YT. 18 months ago I shot 4-5 minutes of video of an abandoned mansion. Long story short short a someone stole and used dam near all the footage. It just so happened a friend of mine recognized the footage and emailed me. The person had a few hundred thousands views when I filed the complaint with YT and they removed / blocked it. The guy freaked out, contacted me apologizing for days. At the end of the day he payed me a nice fee

Had something like this happen to me about 10 years ago with a shot from my DSLR that a posted in a photography forum. I had taken picture of a veterans memorial. To spice it up I split into layers, erased the sky in the top layer, took a picture of my flag and placed it into the middle layer and made it transparent so part of the sky from the bottom layer showed.

A few weeks later noticed a local business using the image as a background for an advertisement. The business claimed they got the image from a friend. I went home for my flag and was able to prove it was my image because of some imperfections on my flag showing in the image. They pulled the ads and from then on I started watermarking all my images that I posted.

 

[JSKCKNIT]

These aren't "jobs" though. I have no issues when someone hires me for a rate. My issue is if I go out and shoot something just for the fun of it and I post it to youtube, I get a lot of people wanting to use that footage productions so how should I go about charging them for that?

Saw this earlier today and it reminded me of your topic.

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[AMann]

If you are in the US, your work is automatically copyrighted. But if you want legal status for it to hold up in court so that violators have to defend themselves in court from the US government and will have to pay the full fines (to them and you), register it with the Copyright office
Registration | U.S. Copyright Office.

To protect yourself and your still photos, use Google Image Search. I use it to find copies of my copyrighted online work being used without my permission, and have received payments from some companies that I contacted about it. Video footage falls in a wierd area, though, because the codec that is used for the video compression is propietary and also copyrighted by the company that developed it. The maker of the camera has paid a license to use it, however that license does not always extend to the camera owner which means you might not be able to sell it (Some Nikons have this issue). Anyways, I dont know if DJI/Hasselblad have an open use clause for it, thus it probably doesnt matter. If you are trying to sell footage, maybe go through a stock agency like Alamy or Corvus, or someone like that? Dont do iStock though- they are the FleaBay of the stock industry.

To price your work, try looking at the stock sites as a buyer, or a member if you want to sign up. You can then shop for footage and set the type of license you want for it, your use and distribution (local, national, etc.) and most sites (like Alamy) will provide an instant quote.

 

[Paul2660]

The whole issue of copywriting in the age of digital is a mess. You can copyright all you want but when your work is stolen by a large company with a even larger legal team odds are you will pay out more than it’s worth. They know this going in.

As the selling your work from a drone. That would be commercialized use and you would need a 107 license for that.

Paul C

 

[JSKCKNIT]

Unless you're a professional photographer/videographer, I think the majority of us amateurs would just like credit for our work, not so much compensation. Money would be nice though!

 

[AMann]

The whole issue of copywriting in the age of digital is a mess. You can copyright all you want but when your work is stolen by a large company with a even larger legal team odds are you will pay out more than it’s worth. They know this going in.

As the selling your work from a drone. That would be commercialized use and you would need a 107 license for that.

Paul C

Valid points, as the FAA even views posting your fun flying works on YouTube as commercial work. I am not posting anything taken with my Mavic on sites that have a ad stream and potential payments until I pass my test.

All the things Ive ever posted online or sold were stills or video taken with my DSLRs on Flickr, 360cities and Alamy. But the funniest, or saddest part is I’ve made the most money making deals with copyright violators Ive sent personal letters with licensing offers to, and never needed a lawyer for it. That’s really how I learned about dealing with the copyright law.

For the violators I’ve found using my photos online, I’ve successfully recieved payments and/or voluntary take downs of my photos by being polite, but factual with my request- here is a sample I use:

Dear, ___

This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in § 512(c) of the U.S. Copyright Law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The infringing material appears on [link to infringing URL] for which you are the designated agent. There are [number of pages] in which my work appears on this website.

All of my images are copyright-protected and the originals appear here: [link to my URL] Please remove these files from your servers at your earliest convenience. Alternately, the image(s) may be licensed for continued commercial use by you if you prefer to keep them, provided that you contact me within 10 working days (two weeks) from [date of this email].

I have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by myself, the copyright owner. I hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that the above information in this email is accurate and that I am the copyright owner.


Thank you for for your time,


Sincerely,

/s/