A car review channel on YouTube has recently been caught using Philip Bloom’s footage without a license. What’s worse? They used it often enough that they racked up a potential copyright claim for £80,000.
Usually when we talk about copyright issues, it’s blatant and difficult to deny; this is no exception. Bloom’s GH4 test footage, a fun watch, has been found 141 times in an opening title sequence. Stealing the footage once is bad enough, but using it in every video takes the cake!
Apparently they had attempted to reach out to Bloom before using the footage – which they say was found on a “B-Roll website for geese stuff” – and decided to go ahead and use it when they couldn’t make contact. Supposedly a message requesting a license was sent via Instagram, not via Email or Facebook, “and even then he messaged @philipbloomgallery which is an art gallery in Nantucket!” Bloom told us.
Considering his standard rate for licensing footage, at £100 per second, per project, the total cost is astronomical. It doesn’t help that some of the content is also on Amazon Prime. “Naturally this was an insane figure” he continues, “so I simply asked him to pay a one off fee as if it was for one project”.
Before anybody decides to get the pitchforks out, the owner of the channel has confessed, apologized and was completely cooperative with Bloom. We’ve all been there, and I’m not certain anybody would put so much hard work into their content, while risking takedown notices on 141 of their videos. This was hardly malicious.
“After I contacted him via email he replied and was very humble and admitted he was completely at fault and offered to do many things, including pull down the videos from Amazon Prime, which was completely unnecessary. I had no desire for him to pull down any videos.
I shared the story with my Facebook audience as copyright infringement is an important subject and too many people ignore the rights of the artists. Some thought it might be covered under "fair usage". There is much education to be done and it is a constant battle.”
We’ve spoken about copyright infringement time and time again, and for the most part, this is one of the more positive experiences. Bloom himself admitted that it wasn’t an incredibly important piece of footage, since it was taken from a camera test, and it largely feels like respect is what matters here; respect for the artist, and even for the pirate.
If anybody is concerned about their own images and footage being stolen, check out Blockai, a free service that’s aiming to combat these issues on behalf of the artist. Like every modern startup, it’s using the blockchain to certify your creation as yours. You could say it's akin to mailing yourself with an idea.
[Via Philip Bloom]
The person who stole the footage hardly did due diligence in trying to locate Bloom. If you Google "Philip Bloom", the first hit is his page. Click on it and there's a link at the top named, "Contact". There, you find both an online email form as well as a link to his email address. When in doubt, don't do it without proper confirmation.
A school kid stealing a section of video for a project wouldn't worry me, unless it is for an actual assessment piece, but someone trying to earn revenue from a video, that contains my work? That is disgraceful. Those guys are lucky that Phillip Bloom was so lenient. Considering the number of nonsense copyright infringements he has to deal with, including music he has paid to use, I'm surprised he didn't force them to take it down!
It seems like giving him credit and exposure would have been a better way to resolve this ;)
Much like people nowadays offering to credit the photographer so they can get "exposure" in lieu of paying them. (Because we know people come flooding in with business requests from the exposure) ;) As one photog said, exposure doesn't pay the bills. ;)
Nothing against Phillip but him essentially letting the guy get away with it is a huge reason people steal things from photographers/artists. They see things like this, realize there is hardly any consequence and do it anyway.
Phillip's work is awesome and I can understand not wanting to destroy someone financially but this is a huge disservice to people who do creative work and want to make a living from it. Especially people just starting out or who don't have a decent income from their work.
He didn't get away with it. For me it was down to how they responded to me. If they denied for example then I would have been way harsher. He admitted it straight away, used a weak excuse, and offered to do many things to make it up including removing all the videos form Amazon Prime and much more. That would have been too harsh a punishment in my opinion. He is undeducated when it comes to copyright as too many are. The way to educate is not to get 141 videos removed but for him to see how close it came to that happening. He won't do it again, he paid a fee that I asked him to and won't use the footage again.
There is no simple solution to this. It will happen again and again. The thing I need to do is get all my footage up with an agency (I only have a small amount represented right now) so next time I don't have to deal with it at all!
Thanks for the reply and clarification Phillip. I'm curious as to why it's too harsh a punishment for him to take the videos down though? he knew what he was doing when he took that image. He may not do it again but others might see it as an opportunity to do it to another photographer. Maybe i'm just not seeing what good being lenient on the guy is? If it was a mistake fine but he clearly knew what he was doing. Even going through a small attempt at finding you makes me think he knows a bit about copyright. If he couldn't contact you he shouldn't have used the image.
I get not wanting to ruin the guy, I'm not a total monster but I think it sets a precedent for other people who may not have the moral centre to see how lenient you were with him and think they can get away with it and not have horrible consequences if they are caught.
Maybe I'm just an ass I'm not sure haha. I just see this as something that could hurt people who don't have the income stream of a working professional.
Sorry If i'm off base but I've gone through a similar situation and if i hadn't been harsh I would have lost a lot of potential income and the client was a large newspaper. I didn't want it happening to the next guy.
Pulling down 141 videos that are useful to many people seemed OTT to me for what I considered a bit of a throwaway clip (but still my property). As I said my decisions were based on my interactions with him. I have had this a number of times and the ones who deny are the ones who get no sympathy from me!
Awesome, really appreciate the answer. I meant no ill will towards you just concerned for my fellow photographers.
Again thanks for the clarification.
Philip Bloom wrote, “He won't do it again, he paid a fee that I asked him to and won't use the footage again.”
Can you share the fee he paid you? When we don’t share prices/licensing fees with our industry, that tends to push rates downward.
I am still waiting for a google reverse video search. But I guess that is going to take a while until we have something like that.
I for one appreciate how Philip approached this. I'm in no way saying it's alright to steal other people's work, just pointing out that there are a lot of mistakes to be made in this industry, especially when you don't have a full grasp on copyright and licensing issues.
In my opinion Philip did the right thing, €80,000 is a sum that would bankrupt most people in the world, and the far better option is to try to educate. This way the individual can keep making videos, but now with (hopefully) more knowledge about how licensing and copyright work.
When I started out I paid and licensed music through a licensing site, however made the mistake of paying for the wrong kind of license, and that ended up costing me more than 4x the budget for the entire video, and having to take out a loan to pay for the full license. I can only imagine what would have happened if I'd have been asked to pay €80,000!
I applaud Mr. Bloom for being reasonable and working to resolve this issue in a decent manner. Thank you Sir. Due to your benevolence it appears the best possible outcome for all involved was reached.