Stock Footage: Ready to use
The multiplicity of platforms has created a whirlwind of issues for the stock footage sector; with the digital world advancing faster than anyone can keep up, new challenges are surfacing over screening rights and increased demand in various formats, writes Georgina Pearson.
For the archive footage industry, the explosion of social networking and video sites creates an endless headache over royalties and copyright. Hundreds of films, documentaries and clips go up daily worldwide – many of them utilising footage without permission. However, there are positive ways for stock footage
companies to harness such a huge resource.
Cyrus Irani, library sales manager for ABC Content Sales (ABC, AP Archive, Opera Australia and other collections), sees YouTube and Facebook as an opportunity for the public broadcaster: “We have uploaded some amazing bloopers and music clips on Entertainment on ABC and regularly refer people to them. Researchers often find this material so the site presents many opportunities for us to showcase our clips. As we licence producers for online streaming, we are of course happy for this material to appear on YouTube or Facebook.”
According to Asha Oberoi from ITN Source (representing Reuters, ITN, ITV Productions, Fox News and Fox Movietone, Channel Nine News, UTV, Asian News International and other specialist collections), whilst keeping track of royalties is hard, it is certainly not impossible – and maintaining a good relationship with clients is crucial.
“The editorial footage marketplace operates on a declaration model, where producers licence a minimum volume and then declare any coverage. This is a long established process and there has to be high levels of trust between us and our established customers.”
But it’s not always so transparent. Oberoi continues, “However, it is impossible to know if a customer who is licensing a clip for one use, i.e. corporate, then uses the material in another capacity, for example broadcast.”
For Getty Images the way forward is royalty free material – and it appears to be a growing trend within the industry. “In terms of volume, royalty-free imagery is the most frequently purchased content among our customers as it has a lower price point. The growth of the internet and other video-capable new media platforms has dramatically expanded the usage of stock footage. The result has led to the transition of advertising spend to these platforms and utilising footage in online media campaigns, on corporate websites, within digital signage platforms and other productions traditionally serviced via static print,” marketing manager Jane King told Encore.
The global financial climate affected the budgets of many films, and this in turn affected the archive footage – in a good way. Oberoi reports an increase in the amount of material being sourced for film productions. “We typically supply one or two film productions a month with footage, which is definitely an increase for us on previous years; however the majority of our client base around the world is still from the TV production industry.”
READY TO USE
