Copyright infringement?

[nargun]

What is the name of your state? TX

My husband and I own a small video production company. We have made several short videos mainly of skydiving. Recently we saw some of our video aired on a national "reality" TV show. We were never contacted by this production company for permission to use our video. They used about 5 seconds of our footage.

How do we go about getting this company to cease and dissist using our video? Or alternatively how can we demand restitution for video already aired?

Thanks

 

[macktosh]

how can you PROVE its yours and you shot the footage.

lots of people skydive, lots of people take photos and videos, so its up to you to show them proof its really your footage. If they then refuse to stop showing it, then you can sue them

Is there something you can point to and say well nobody has a pink polka dotted jump suit except ME!

 

[divgradcurl]

"How do we go about getting this company to cease and dissist using our video? "

Send them a letter RRR identifying yourselves as the owners and asking them to stop showing the video without obtaining your permission first.

"Or alternatively how can we demand restitution for video already aired?"

You can demand whatever you want. If they say no, however, and you decide to take them to court for infringement. unless you have a registered copyright on the work that they used, you will not be able to recover anything other than "actual damages" -- that is, the amount you've actually been "harmed" by the infringing activity.

Ask them to stop. That'll probably do the trick.

 

[nargun]

Proof?

I think we can prove it is our video, we obtained written permission to film this particular event, both from the owners of the site, and all participants. We have the original mini DV tapes, which are time-stamped.

Secondly, what is a "registered" copyright, we put the copyright symbol, name of the production company and date on the finished video. Is that "registered"?

 

[divgradcurl]

"what is a "registered" copyright, we put the copyright symbol, name of the production company and date on the finished video. Is that "registered"?"

No, that's not registered. A copyright symbol gets you nothing -- it's no longer required. A registered copyright is one that has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office -- go to their website and you can find the infromation necessary to register a copyright.

"we obtained written permission to film this particular event, both from the owners of the site, and all participants."

Are you sure that you were the ONLY people videotaping that event? Even if someone else was videotaping without permission, that would not be a copyright infringement...

 

[nargun]

I'm sure we were not the only people filming that day, but the footage that was aired was definitely our footage, shot by our cameras by our cameraman.

Thanks for the copyright information, I will go look and see what I can do.