Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

Filmed a Nutcracker for client and I am selling DVD's with a portion going back to them. She has asked me to put a copyright notice at the beginning, "copying and distributing illegal, blah, blah, blah". I was hoping I would find some generic text for this but struck out. Any ideas? Whose company would be the copyright holder, mine or hers?

Thanks all.

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

If the client has financed the recording then the copyright to the recorded work should be theirs. If you have financed it then it should be yours, depending on your agreement with them before filming.

This is referring to the copyright of the recorded material, not the content. If the Nutcracker includes Tchaikovsky's music and/or someone else's arrangement and choreography, then there will almost certainly be other copyright and performance issues which I assume have already been cleared. This is particularly important with school and small theatre group productions where they should have the correct licenses in place. Frequently they do not and when copies start appearing in the public domain on disc or on YouTube, there can be problems.

Roger

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

Not quite exactly answering the question, but here's some text I used on the DVD art for a pro-bono job.

Andrew

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

In the US, use of copyright notice on a published work after March 1989 became optional, so there is no statutory requirement to have a printed notice. If you choose to use a notice, there are guidelines to follow, most of which are covered in this link. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy...eptible_copies
You can of course choose to put a notice of warning on your DVDs, as a 'frightener' to discourage copying, although copyright is still protected whether or not there is a notice.

Roger

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

If found below message to be pretty straightforward, except for the prohibited locations (like oil rigs and prisons) where it cannot be played :) and you might just as well leave out that part.
Those copyright messages won't prevent anything though, people will copy the dvd's whenever they feel like it.

http://mrfortna.com/IT/Copyright-Notice.png

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

Thanks all. I believe she is looking for the "frightener" in hopes they will do the right thing. And we all know what that and a cup of coffee gets ya

I do like the text in the photo and will use similar on the opening screen.

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

I've got a CD somewhere and it says:
"All right reserved. Unauthorized copying is prohibited. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

But that might be a bit unfriendly :-p

Re: Copyright at beginning of DVD?
 

Careful with using the official DVD logo shown in the photo. It is reserved for replication discs made to the DVD specification and corresponding licensing fees being paid. You can't use it on a burned DVD+-R. DVD FLLC - DVD Logo