How to reuse the photos and videos from a collaboration
A collaboration takes days to set up, goes live one afternoon and gets seen for a few more. Then the post slides down everyone's feed and it looks like that was that. It wasn't: the photos and the videos are still there, and they are the part that took the most work and the part that can last the longest.
That material can end up in your window display, on your website, on your menu, on a sign by the door or on your own social accounts. Not in any old way, though, and not by assuming it's yours.
By default, the material belongs to the creator
Your shop appearing in the video doesn't make the video yours. Whoever shoots and edits it holds the rights to that piece, the same way a photographer holds them over wedding photos even though the couple paid. Downloading the post and putting it on your website without saying anything is an easy mistake to make and an awkward one to undo.
It's also the rule that protects the creator, and it's what lets them work at all. Worth treating it as such, not as a formality.
Agree on it beforehand, not once you've used it
Asking afterwards puts the other person in a bad spot: either they say yes to something already done, or they look like the difficult one. Bring it up when you agree the collaboration, as naturally as you'd talk about the day and the time.
Four things worth pinning down:
- Where you'll use it. Your own social accounts, a printed sign, the screen in the shop and a paid ad are not the same thing.
- For how long. A few months, a year, no limit. Any answer works as long as it has been said out loud.
- Whether you can edit. Crop to another format, drop the music, add your opening hours on top.
- How they get credited. Name visible, handle tagged, or nothing at all if they don't mind.
With that written down in a message you have what you need. A neighbourhood collaboration doesn't call for a contract.
Ask for the original files
Downloading the video from the app leaves you a compressed copy, sometimes with a watermark and with music you can't use anywhere else. The original files are heavier and look far better, especially if you're going to print.
Take the chance to ask for versions too: a vertical photo works on the screen in the shop, a horizontal one for the header of your website. Ask while the shoot is happening and it costs almost nothing. Ask three months later and someone has to go digging.
Editing yes, changing the meaning no
Adapting the format, shortening a long video or laying your opening hours over it is normal use. Cutting separate sentences together so it sounds like someone said something they didn't isn't. The difference shows immediately, and it gets paid for in trust.
What respects the creator when you reuse
- Credit them when the format allows, even if nobody asked you to.
- Don't pass the material on to third parties, not to a supplier and not to another shop.
- Say so if it's going into paid advertising, because not everyone is up for that.
- If their face is in it, be even more careful: appearing in their own video is one thing, becoming the face of your shop for a year is another.
- Be able to take it down if they ask. Online that's instant; on a sign already printed, whenever it next gets changed.
What you get out of it
You stop relying on stock photos that were taken nowhere near your shop. You end up with real material: your product, your people, your street, properly lit and framed by someone who knows how. That's the difference between a website that looks like anywhere and one that looks like your place.
One thing to start with
Open a folder per collaboration. Inside it, the original files, the creator's name and one line with what you agreed: where, how long, whether you can edit. When you wonder months later whether you can use that photo for the sign by the door, you won't have to ask or trust your memory. The answer will be written down.