December 17, 2009 8:26 AM PST
Patrick,
Let me start out saying I am not a lawyer, but my FCC attorney tells me that anything we produce that runs on our station is automatically copyrighted and owned by us. If any of the music on the spot is part of a Production Library that we have leased or purchased, technically that material can only be used on our station unless there is some verbage in the lease agreement that allows otherwise, or unless the material was purchased as a "buy out" of a library, and then we would own the rights and can do anything with that music that we wish to do.
We have had a long term policy that states that when a client asks us to produce a spot for them, we'll do it as part of our service, and we'll provide them with dubs for other stations, so long as there is a buy on our station. If we're just doing the Production with no buy on our station, there is a studio charge, a talent charge and a dub/distribution charge for each copy that goes out to another station or media. The intent is that if they want to use our talent/Production on other stations/mdia, they pay us one way or the other.
In big markets where AFTRA is involved and the market's talent is unionized there are specific rules and costs for all of this stuff. You probably don't need to be that formal in your market, but establishing a policy for handling this type of thing is probably a good idea, and protecting your Production and Talent from their hard work being used for free is always a good idea that will keep them interested in doing quality work for you.
December 17, 2009 11:08 AM PST
Our stations charge a flat fee of $100 if the client wants to take a spot that we produced and run it with other stations. That $100 is a one time fee and goes directly to the talent who voiced the spot.
December 18, 2009 12:08 AM PST
Patrick, thank you for starting this discussion. Since it seems to be a hot topic, we decided to make the question of "Who owns the spot?" the subject of this week's Friday poll. So as not to have two discussions on the same issue going at once, I'm going to close this discussion (at least temporarily) and ask that RSC members post their replies at this link: https://www.radiosalescafe.com/forums/topic/252/friday-poll-who-owns-the-spot/view/post_id/12682
This post was edited by Rebecca Hunt at February 5, 2019 10:42 PM PST
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