Q&A: Festival and Likeness Ownership

From: Peter

Question:  My band Bicycle Thief have been selected to play an end of year festival. They sent us a contract, stipulating that they own all the rights to any photo’s or footage taken of us being “Bicycle Thief” during the performance. I was just wondering if that is standard practice? and if not how should I change it?

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Yeah thats pretty typical because they don’t want you, the performer, to dictate how they use the materials to promote the current and future events.

I would suggest that you ensure they don’t have any language that assigns copyrights or anything like that. You might also make sure that they don’t have language in there that says they can sell and distribute the photos & video.  Attempt to limit the usages to the festival homepage only. Or make sure that if they want to use it outside of the homepage that any audio is not in full and any other media is done in conjunction with festival advertisements only.

In the case of audio or video, I would avoid inclusion on cds, dvds, samplers, etc. that are going to be sold unless you are getting paid. In which case you want clear language dictating what, how, when and where you will get paid. If they are giving away the CD I would weigh out the value to you. They are likely giving the CD away because advertisers and sponsors have provided cash to make it possible. Which means money is being made on the backend by a product that you are helping sell ( to the advertisers and sponsors ).

At the end of the day, you’re best bet is to hire an attorney to work all that language out for you.