Re: Watermark

I have a potential buyer for a large quantity of footage (500gb). Of course they want to view the rushes prior to purchase and are sending me a hard drive to upload to. I have never had this opportunity before, consequently I am not sure how to protect my copyright.
1. Do I put a copyright logo on each rush? If so what is the quickest way to do that? In the past I have used the title feature in FCPX. Is there a quicker method?
2. The potential buyer is a large network. They assure me that they can not use the footage without me signing off and not to bother with the watermark. Do I dare just send the footage to them?

Any suggestions or comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Kent

If it's reputable company I don't think you have anything to worry about but I don't think it's wise to trust anyone with your work. I think you need to state your terms and conditions from the outset and those must be agreed to by them.

They have the right to use any footage on a once only basis, single use.
Only the footage they pay for can be copied.
Once their project is finished the drive containing your footage must be erased and they give you notice that this has been done

If anything pops up later that they have used without authorisation will be a breach of contract

Better use wartermark in case of some unnecessary authority problem

Any broadcaster will view the footage and judge it's content. After that it will be sent for tech review to make sure it meets their minimum standards with regard to format, data rate. Chroma and luma levels, Audio levels, etc, etc. This is quite a time consuming and expensive process which I doubt they would be prepared to do with watermarked footage because if accepted they would have to send the drive back for the un-watermarked footage to be loaded then returned. That footage would then have to go to tech review again. I don't think they would go for that, I wouldn't.

janedesting Wrote:
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> Better use wartermark in case of some unnecessary
> authority problem
.....................................................................

Authorization is an absolute must, unless you work for free.

thanks for the great advise.

Kent

Finally, do not use a 100% opacity watermark...my recommendation is to place the watermark in the lower right corner and bring down the opacity to about 40%. I know an amateur photographer who insists on using a 100% opacity watermark right in the center of his shots and it spoils everything he shot..don't even want to look at them.
Steve