You Don’t Own Me Man
I have to write this here because these people read my blog.
Just over a year ago I left my good paying full time job to strike out on my own. I could not see a future where I was so didn't see any point in sticking around. I had produced one - rather gorgeous, if I do say so myself - Directory for them, and learned whatever I could that I didn't already know about publishing.
I reduced my schedule to part time in February that year, and began searching new opportunities in earnest. The week before my last day I had a meeting with a wildlife biologist (the guy with the live streaming eagle nest cams) about their website design and other potential services I could do for them.
Until this past spring I was doing a bunch of work for them. But nothing I ever did for pay involved my camera. I was invited along to film various work projects of theirs (ie: putting in the underwater salmon cam at the Chehalis Fish Hatchery). I made it plain that I would provide clips for him to use on his website, but would also be putting them on my own.
I wasn't funded by them at all in this capacity; my camera, my time (unpaid), my travel expenses (very little), . . . at most he paid for lunch for all of us. After a few times of this happy exchange, he suddenly decided that I had no right to put any footage taken at these kinds of excursions on my own website (or YouTube), that anything Hancock-related was to be posted on my media page of the Hancock site and nowhere else. I just laughed him off and said, "Well, if you want sole proprietary you're going to have to pay me David. And I will be charging a significant amount."
He glossed over this, changed the subject to something absolutely banal, then before we got out of the truck returned to it as a sort of reminder to me, "Be sure not to post anything from today on your website". I just ignored him. I was already in the armpit of Harrison for bloody hell, the last thing I needed then was to be dumped out on the side of the road by some asshole with $3000 worth of camera equipment and no way to get back to civilization.
Of course I posted whatever I wanted, edited as I wanted, wherever I wanted. I shared it with him, and even did a special edit at his request. All unpaid of course. I get credit, which is all I wanted in the first place.
This July they had their annual "Fledge Fest" (a tour of eagles' nest in the Victoria area to watch the new eagle babies fly for their first time). Everyone pays their own way, including lunch, and arranges their own transportation. I filmed some eagles nests but our timing was off, not as excellent as last year. And I filmed the little ceremony and few speeches but it wasn't very good (unruly people walking in front of the camera, carrying on conversations close by, the biologist was distracted and a bit weepy for various reasons one of which being his 91 year old mother had died literally three days before).
I put the eagle footage on my YouTube but it's crap and has had very few views. I never used the speeches and such for anything because it's pretty bad. So now I just got an emails ('happy belated birthday' yeah thanks fuck you), please do one tiny change to the website even though we don't want to pay you any more for this and can't find anyone else with the skill to do it for free and, and . . . oh by the way . ..
"I'm still hoping that you'll post your pictures from FledgeFest on the forum. Most of us don't go over to YouTube unless there's a link to something specific there. I know that David requested you to be his guest at FF so that you would film it for us. We have lots of .jpgs that people have posted, but there is absolutely no video of the event. We really do need to have all the pics and videos for HWF gatherings/functions on our HWF site. If you or others choose to post on YouTube in addition, that's fine too."
His "guest"?? WTF? I love the last line, granting me permission to use MY OWN WORK from MY OWN CAMERA that I OWN and bought with MY OWN MONEY on my own website. Fuckers.
Anyways whatever I will handle it, but not today as I am likely to tell her exactly where she can fucken shove it (considering the mood I am in right now and that I seem to have contracted a particularly unpleasant stomach virus).
-Keta