Greg Hartnett

I received the following email yesterday afternoon:

Hi Greg,

My name is Tamara and I’m a producer on a Spike TV show called “World’s Most Amazing Videos.” My producers and I saw a video of some pee wee hockey
players brawling on the ice with your website posted at the end. Is this
your footage? If so, we want to license this from you for use on our show.

Please contact me at 323.468.xxxx or xxxxxx@nashentertainment.com.

Thanks,

Tamara xxxxxx
Segment Producer
Nash Entertainment
1438 N. Gower Street
Bldg. 35, Room 150
Hollywood, CA 90028
323-468-xxxx phone
323-468-xxxx fax

I’ve dealt with “producers” from a couple of other outlets in the past looking to get their dirty little hands on my hockey fight video, so I was somewhat prepared for how the interaction would play out. Sure that nothing would come out of it, I decided to kill some time while the SureWest guys finished off my new fiber optic installation.

From the onset of our call I had a bad taste in my mouth. Tamara sounded like the typical Hollywood producer - self absorbed and as shallow as a puddle after a spring shower. She sprung right into action, telling me how great her show is and what they wanted to do with my video. She never took a moment to learn about me or my son, nor did she even pretend to care about what I thought about giving them permission to use my video. She simply ripped through what she wanted to say, throwing out a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, and finishing off with a recap of what they’d need in order to make it happen. She then offered me a whopping $500. Wow - even the guys at Country Fried Home Videos ( a show on the Country Music Channel) started off at $1000.

I told Tamara that I had no interest in letting them use my video for $500. I told her that if they wanted to use it, they’d have to pony up with considerably more money. I think I caught her off guard (I guess most people just jump at the $500) because she got a little flustered and told me that she’d have to pass me off to her senior producer to negotiate further.

Next on the line was Jenni - a senior producer who had the power to offer me more money. After a few moments of speaking with Jenni, it occurred to me that self absorption and shallowness must be a prerequisite for a job in Hollywood. Jenni provided me with much of the same information that Tamara had gone through, but she was able to offer me $750 for non-exclusive production rights.

At this point, I was finally able to explain to them that I wasn’t interested in their offer at these dollar amounts. I tried to explain to her (though I don’t know if she either didn’t understand, or just didn’t care) that the video was hosted on my blog, which is completely non-commercial in nature. I told her that the original version of the video - the one hosted on my blog - contained music that is copyrighted by System of a Down. I’m not currently concerned about the copyright as I’m not making any money whatsoever off the video or the blog, and both are provided to the public under the Fair Use clause of the copyright law. If I started taking money for use of the video, I wouldn’t be able to claim Fair Use, and may open myself up to potential liabilities.

This seemed to have resonated a bit with Jenni, eliciting a new offer of one thousand dollars. I quickly retorted that she was still not even in the ballpark of a number that would get me remotely interested. When she asked me how much it would take to get me interested, I replied “definitely north of 10 grand”. I think this irked her a bit because she got on the defensive, even insulting my video: “The video isn’t that great - it’s not like somebody is hanging off a cliff or something.”

I know that the video isn’t necessarily worth that much, but that’s what it would have taken to get me interested in pursuing it any further. It would have caused a paradigm shift for me, and could have potentially opened a can of worms - that’s what the $10,000 was for.

Needless to say, you won’t be seeing JR any time soon on the World’s Most Amazing Videos.