Acquired Footage and Animation

Each piece of acquired footage must be cleared, licenses obtained and records kept unless an excerpt is being used under the Fair Use Doctrine (see the Fair Use Doctrine section). It is important to recognize that the copyright holder is not necessarily the organization that provides you with the footage. You must obtain a release or agreement from the person who can warrant that they are the copyright holder. This can be tricky since footage may include many copyrighted works such as compositions, sound recordings and visual works. Different people may own each piece of work within the footage. There may also be guild agreements (such as the Directors Guild or the Screen Actors Guild) requiring that people who appeared in or worked on the footage in question should be paid. Most people licensing footage will have a clause in their agreement stating that you (the producer buying or licensing the footage) are liable for any applicable payments to musicians, composers, people appearing in the clips, or other guild or union agreements. For example, you will need to check whether the licensee of that footage has secured personal releases from persons appearing in the footage. 

The rights you acquire for footage must be consistent with the rights agreed to in your Production License Agreement. You may wish to negotiate step-up fees or royalties for other uses as well. There is no public broadcasting compulsory license mechanism or standardized voluntary rate agreement for acquired footage. All uses must be negotiated and cleared on an individual basis.

Some copyright holders simply do not license their footage. For example, a producer wanted to use a brief, 10-second clip in a socially worthy documentary from the estate of Charlie Chaplin. Even though the estate representatives were sympathetic to the cause, the clip could not be licensed at any price (and it was clearly not a fair use). Check on availability before you deem something essential to your program.