A working glossary of footage and licensing terms

This is the list kept open in a second window while quotes are read and contracts are signed. Definitions are short on purpose. Terms are grouped by the situation in which they usually appear rather than alphabetically, because that is how they arrive: all at once, in a paragraph you did not expect.

Rights and permissions

Chain of title

The documented sequence of ownership and grants that shows the person licensing a work is entitled to do so. Insurers and distributors ask to see it.

Clearance

The process of obtaining every permission a shot needs: copyright, releases, music, trademarks, and anything else visible in frame.

Editorial use only

A restriction meaning the clip carries no releases and may be used only in news, commentary, education or documentary contexts, never to promote or endorse.

Exclusivity

An agreement that the supplier will not license the same material to anyone else, usually limited by industry, territory and time.

Fair use

A United States doctrine, set out in section 107 of the Copyright Act, allowing limited unlicensed use. It is judged case by case on four factors, including the purpose of the use and its effect on the market for the original.

Indemnification

The supplier's promise to cover the licensee's losses if the license turns out to be defective, normally capped at a stated amount.

Model release

Signed consent from a recognisable person allowing commercial use of their appearance.

Orphan work

A work still in copyright whose rights holder cannot be identified or found despite a diligent search.

Property release

Signed consent from the owner of private property, an artwork or a distinctive object appearing in a shot.

Public domain

Material no longer protected by copyright, or never protected. Free of copyright restriction, but not automatically free of release, trademark or publicity issues.

Rights holder

The party that actually controls the copyright, as opposed to the party holding a physical copy.

Sub-license

Permission to pass part of your granted rights on to another party, such as a co-producer or a foreign distributor. Rarely automatic.

Warranty

The supplier's formal statement that it has the right to grant the license. Frequently narrowed or withdrawn on archive material.

Licenses and money

All media

A grant covering every distribution channel, current and often future. The widest media line, and the one that moves a quote the most.

Broadcast license

A grant for transmission on television, usually specified by territory, number of runs and window.

Comp

A low resolution, watermarked copy supplied for offline editing and internal approval before a license is bought.

Extended license

An upgrade to a standard royalty free license, typically needed for broadcast, very large audiences, resale items or multiple users.

In perpetuity

A term with no end date. It does not mean unlimited: media, territory and exclusivity still apply.

Research fee

A charge for a researcher's time spent finding material, sometimes credited against a later license.

Rights managed

A model in which the fee is calculated from the declared use. Change the use and a new license is required.

Royalty free

A model in which one fee buys repeated use within stated limits, with no further payment per use. Neither free nor unlimited.

Subscription license

A model in which a recurring fee allows downloads under a standing license, which usually ends, for new downloads, when the subscription does.

Term

The length of the permission.

Territory

The geographic area in which the finished piece may be shown.

Technical and delivery

Aspect ratio

The shape of the frame. Archive material is frequently 4:3, which must be pillarboxed, cropped or deliberately framed inside a 16:9 timeline.

Codec

The compression scheme of the delivered file. Editing codecs such as ProRes and DNxHR behave very differently in a timeline from delivery codecs such as H.264.

Drop frame

A timecode counting method used at 29.97 frames per second so that timecode stays aligned with clock time. It skips numbers, never pictures.

Frame rate

Frames per second. Common values are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 50 and 59.94. Mixing them without conversion produces stutter.

Handles

Extra frames supplied before and after the requested section, so the shot can be trimmed and dissolved. Ask whether they are included.

Interlaced

A legacy scanning method in which each frame is split into two fields. Older broadcast and archive material is often interlaced and needs deinterlacing.

Log profile

A flat capture curve preserving highlight and shadow detail for grading. Log clips look washed out until they are graded.

Master

The highest quality copy held by the supplier, from which deliverables are made.

Pull-down

The pattern used to fit 24 frames per second material into a 29.97 signal. Undoing it badly leaves combed frames.

Telecine

The transfer of film to video. Two telecines of the same reel, done years apart, can look like different material.

Timecode

The frame address of a clip, written hours, minutes, seconds and frames. The only reliable way to specify a section of a long archive reel.

Upscale

Enlarging lower resolution material to a higher delivery format. It adds pixels, never detail.

Watermark or burn-in

Visible marking on a preview copy, often combined with visible timecode so that a specific frame can be quoted back to the supplier.

Craft and workflow

Asset identifier

The supplier's own reference for a clip. Quote it in every message; titles and thumbnails are ambiguous, identifiers are not.

B-roll

Supporting footage cut over or between the main material, used to cover edits, establish place and show what a speaker is describing.

Bin or lightbox

A saved collection inside a library's interface. The fastest way to hand a shortlist to a director without losing the identifiers.

Edit decision list

A machine readable list of the clips and timecodes used in a cut. It is also the fastest route to an accurate clearance list.

Establishing shot

A wide shot that tells the viewer where the next sequence takes place.

Insert

A tight shot of a detail, cut in to carry information or to hide a join.

Locked-off shot

A shot from a fixed camera with no movement, useful under titles and for time comparisons of the same place.

Shot list

The written list of shots a sequence needs, ideally with the license scope written next to each line.

Slate

The board filmed at the head of a take, carrying production, scene and take information. In archive collections the slate is often the only surviving metadata.

Stock footage

Pre-existing footage licensed for use in another production, whether shot last month or a century ago.

Using this list

Two of these terms cause more trouble than the rest combined. "Royalty free" is read as "free", and "editorial use only" is read as "for serious films". Both readings are wrong, and both are unpicked in the comparison of royalty free and rights managed licensing. If you are about to write to an archive, the nine lines a footage research request needs uses this vocabulary in the order a researcher expects it.