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Unless you sign it away you own the copyright.
If you have signed it away you own it until they pay you.
Because you own it doesn't mean that you can broadcast the contents.
If production provide the tapes they own the tapes you own the images.
They can't use the tapes without paying you.
I once had a PM "take" tapes from a shoot and held the company over a barrel (inflated expenses bill she wanted paid) while our deadline approached.
I paid for the tapes the crew the helishoot in Hong Kong(!).
I learnt a lot that week, namely hang onto the tapes!
In respect to who has legal rights to hold the tapes this is interesting.
In the above case, the question the police asked was did she have a right as part of her job to be in possession of the tapes.
Her mistake was that she redirected a courier who picked up the tapes from me, to go to her private address instead of the edit. This was the "questionable" bit. Had she walked into the edit and offered to walk the tapes back to her office it wouldn't have been under consideration as a criminal offence.
Mike Brennan
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