Given the recent copyright discussions in this group, I thought it was worth posting my story of when footage I shot of a skydiving expedition to Nepal was used in a TV programme without permission. The guy who used it (a millionaire twat of a banker called Per Wimmer) made a film for Danish TV claiming that he had been making history as the first person to skydive over Everest, when the mountain was in fact over 20 miles away from the drop zone, and that he was also doing a tandem dive (strapped to another skydiver). Wimmer paid for my expenses on the trip (flights, etc) but when I challenged him he claimed that in exchange for my expenses being paid I had agreed he would own all IP in the footage, and that I wasnt entitled to anything.... I sued him and the case eventually went to court, where the judge ruled that we jointly owned the copyright, and therefore that neither of us could use it without the others permission..... I was paid compensation for the infringement by the Danish broadcaster (full details below). ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-it-birss-is-it-plane-skydive.html Wimmer probably spent close to £60,000 on legal fees trying to prove his case, when he could have just paid me off for a couple of grand and been free to use the footage in perpetuity!.. it seems that some peoples ego means that they just have to be proved to be right regardless of the cost, or the merits of their case. In this instance the footage simply wasnt worth arguing about... I think the judge made a fair decision under the circumstances, but it serves a lesson to videographers that just because you shot the footage, other factors might come into play regarding who owns the copyright. In this case the judge ruled that because Wimmer had (substantially) paid for my expenses, he could be regarded as the producer of the footage... I think this was a stretch, and potentially sets a dangerous precedent. The BBC did a feature on the trip using my (our) footage, showing what a con the whole trip was. https://youtube/watch?v=CZwAzkf-sLI
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 11:07:22 +0000