How to formulate your question and how
we draw up our estimate
Research
time
Technical expenses
Method of calculation of rights
The
financial estimate of our research time is made according to various criteria
linked to the project:
- The content and variety of subject matter to be researched
- The diversity of sources to be consulted, exploited and negotiated
- The centralisation of research and buying
- The precise timing of the end-product or amount of footage and stills
- The legal complexity of researched images and the negotiation of their rights (copyright, duplication, image rights, quotation…)
We
draw up an estimate using these criteria.
X Y Zebre essentially bills research-time, to this are added pre-estimated
costs on a case-by-case basis (telephone, fax, shopping, photocopies,
purchasing documentation and in some cases research or duplication costs
billed by the source…)
X Y Zebre never
bears the cost of rights and conformation costs.
The in-depth knowledge of the archives market and sources' commercial
practices makes it possible for us to target only the most relevant sources
for a project whilst respecting deadlines and budgetary constraints through
the organisation of partnerships.
The financial
estimate of buying, rights and technical costs is made according to:
-The precise timing of the end-product or the number of documents to finish
-The choice between either centralising sources or multiplying them
-The final medium (VHS, CD Rom…) to be used determining duplication
and printing costs
-The type of rights to be negotiated depending on medium, country, duration
-Means of calculation of rights by the source
Should you be looking for stills, films, manuscripts,
or any other type of document on any medium, 3 items of expenditure must
be evaluated:
- Technical research and viewing costs
- Technical duplication costs
- Royalties
An apparently attractive price in terms of rights paid per minute may
in fact turn out to be prohibitive if for example technical costs or the
method of calculation of royalties or both are high.
Technical
Expenses
Technical costs can vary enormously from one source to another.
They can go from being free in some cases to extremely prohibitive, depending
on the sources:
- Research time spent by the source
- Documents made available
- Viewing billed either by the hour or the number of documents viewed
- Copying costs billed according to the medium chosen, total running-time
and the number of extracts
(firstly for pre-editing or a model, and then for confirmation or final
printing…)
The average cost per minute for technical costs is extremely variable
and depends on the strategy adopted and the constraints linked to the
subject.
Technical costs can sometimes represent as much as fifty percent of the
royalties paid.
X Y Zebre establishes comparative tables of prices.
Royalties are calculated according to the use and the scale of broadcast.
It is in the user's interest to pre-negotiate further rights so as to avoid "breaking-point".
Picking up the pieces afterwards can be more costly than the sales proceeds generated by reutilization.
Some public institutions are more expensive than private sources and less accommodating due to heavy administrative procedures.
In France and England, the distinction between public and private has become practically meaningless. In the USA, this barrier is extremely clear and well-defined; the "public domain" at the Library of Congress and in the National Archives is available and exploitable by all, the state billing only technical costs.
Sources can only bill and transfer rights they possess or represent.
If the case arises, they must pay back a portion to their representatives, trustees, copyright holders and neighbouring rights holders: authors, performers, technicians, editors, co-producers.
Additional rights are often added to the price of reproduction rights thus increasing the bill : image rights, property rights…
Method of calculation of
rights.
The unique consideration of amounts is never enough in the audio-visual
world. The method of rights calculation can completely alter the apparent
attractiveness of a source.
Sources of animated images can bill:
- by frame
- by 10-second sections
- to 30-second sections
- by indivisible 1-minute minimum sections
- by indivisible 1-minute minimum sections per document inserted
- by cumulated minutes.
A price per minute can dupe! Likewise, a price per minute higher than others can work out to be cheaper if the source accumulates different fragments used from various documents and simply adds them up. On the other hand, a source that bills a 1-minute minimum per document inserted will work out to be very expensive if the user has not used his whole minute. For a minute of footage used, a user may need to resort to using four 15-second extracts, but will have paid four times 1 minute!
X Y Zebre establishes comparative tables of prices.