Today I received a DHL letter from "Judge Joe Brown". Asking if I want to fly to LA to tape the hearing. The producer of this show promises in this letter that they will pay for travel and all expenses associated doing it this way, and guarantee the appearance fee for appearing on this program. Also, if I win the case they guarantee that I receive the money awarded by the arbitrator within 30 days, plus the court costs (I need to find out what that means). Whereas if I win the case traditional court way, the payment from the defendant is not guaranteed by the court in a timely fashion, if ever.
Has anybody in the vlogging community ever done lawsuits televised? Should I go for it? Renat --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Renat Zarbailov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello everyone! > > Over the past three months I completed three 2-minute videos for a > startup DJ company, who never paid a penny for my work, promising me > that when they will start getting paid for their gigs in night clubs > then they will pay me for each completed video. > > Within these three months I shot 8 events for them, each one requiring > at least 4 hours of shooting. > > They started pressuring me lately to deliver four more completed > videos within a week or so. Since they never paid for any of my work I > told them if they wanted speed they would have to pay $600 per > completed video with a week turnaround from the shoot day. This > escalated into a dispute and now I no longer want to deal with them. > > I asked them kindly to remove these three videos I created from their > web site, myspace, youtube, and vimeo. They are refusing to do so > claiming that these videos belong to them. I offered to let them keep > them online if they would pay $300 per each video so we part our ways > peacefully. And now we are having a dispute over who owns these videos. > > All of the agreements we made among us were verbal and never in writing. > > On Monday I want to file a lawsuit in small claims court to have these > videos pulled of the web or for them to pay up. Has anyone in our > vlogging community ever dealt with a similar situation? If I were to > contact Youtube/Vimeo for video removal request, what do they ask for > to proof video ownership? > > Should I also file for reimbursement for the time I spent shooting > these 8 events? Basically it comes to 32 hours of very hard work > running around in the clubs shooting small clips. I offered them these > source video files at $100 per each event, so they could use them by > hiring another editor, they refused. So I will gladly have to purge > them all. After the court, of course. > > Also, there's no copyright mention in the end credits of all three > videos, the last two list my name as camera/editing. They're claiming > that their glamorous company provided exposure for my video skills. I > never wanted exposure by shooting and editing their videos. I even did > not put my name in the end credits of the first video, which proofs > that. They approached me for help, not the other way around. > > Here are these three videos: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8x5B-h08Hs > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGRiB35h7Pw > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcIbVFu6_PE > > This DJ company never invested into any of the video production > (props, special video preparation or anything). They just had a stable > (yes, stable, :) that's what it says in their recent press release) of > girls DJ for them, without paying them either by the way. > > I have seen many of their graphic designers and photographers come and > go, which slowly started making sense to me that they just want to > parasite off other people's energy and skills. > > I would truly appreciate any input you may have regarding this > situation or content ownership before I head out to court to fight for > my rights. > > Thanks everyone! > > Renat Zarbailov of Innomind.org >
