Copyright??

State of Minnesota

My friend and i filmed a webisode for youtube as a part of the "Stuff people say" series. Anna, which is her name, edited half of the video on her computer, and i edited half of it on mine. After editing, she changed her mind several times about posting it but agreed at last. A day after i posted the video, she changed her mind again and asked me to take it down. Many people liked the video and i thought it was unfair to the viewers and unfair to me that she kept on changing her mind so i said no. Now she reported the video as copyright, but the video was never entirely hers. I along with two of our other friends were involved with the video, matter of fact it was us that got it started, but we just filmed half of it on her computer. Does she have the rights to the video to report it to youtube as copyright? And if not why?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

If you do not have any written agreement stating the contrary, you and Anna and your friends would be looked at legally as coauthors of the copyrighted work. A court would presume that, as coauthors, each of you have equal rights in the work.

What this means is that, as coauthors, any of you can use the work without receiving permission from the others. You just need to inform the others of your use and share equally in any profits you may realize.

The fact that Anna wants the video withdrawn and you and your friends don't is one reason why written and signed collaboration agreements are important. A written agreement can spell out the rights, responsibilities, obligations, restrictions, percentage of ownership rights, whatever, of each author so that if there is a dispute, you can resolve it by looking to what has been agreed upon already in writing.

If Anna files a DMCA takedown notice to have the copyrighted video removed on copyright infringement grounds (and she has to swear to the truth of her claims under penalty of perjury), you will be given the opportunity to dispute the takedown. If you do not dispute her notice of infringement, the video will not be placed back online. If you do dispute the notice, and Anna does not respond to this with the filing of an infringement lawsuit against you, the video will be returned to its place online.

With that said, you will have to weigh your equal-rights as coauthor in the copyrighted work against your friendship with Anna. Is the video so important to you that you want to risk losing a friend over it?

Reply

Well first off, let's just say the friendship is long gone. We filmed the video on her computer(still no written agreement), she has most of the footage on her computer, i have about a fair amount of the footage filmed on mine. Does that change anything?

It doesn't change things if the part you filmed and the part Anna filmed were edited and combined to create one single video. If you each contributed significant parts to the whole of the video, then you would be considered coauthors of the video with equal rights in the video - with each of you individually having the right to reproduce the work, distribute the work, make derivatives of the work, display the work.

This would be the case if there was no written agreement stating otherwise. The copyrights in the video would be presumed by a court to be equally shared.

Now, if Anna's film and your film are separate, stand-on-their-own works and have not been combined to create one work, then whatever you created would be yours and whatever Anna created would be hers. It is the combining of the parts into a whole that would make each contributor to the whole a coauthor of the work, with equal rights to the work.