Who owns the raw video footage: possession versus rights

In Canada, the company that pays for a video does not automatically become the owner of the copyright in it. The Copyright Act provides that the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright. The old provision that gave that ownership to whoever commissioned a photograph or an engraving has been repealed. The rushes raise a second and separate question: who keeps the raw files that come out of the camera. Both questions are settled by contract, separately, before the shoot.

This page describes a default rule in a federal statute and what a buyer should have written into a contract. It is not legal advice, and I am not interpreting your agreement. Have your own counsel confirm how this applies to your situation before you sign.

Holding the files and owning the rights are two different things

A manufacturer can walk away with a hard drive full of rushes and hold no right to use them. Another can hold very broad usage rights and never receive a single raw file. Both situations exist, and neither one implies a dishonest supplier. Most of the disputes I see in this industry start there: two parties argue about one of the two questions while each believes they are discussing the other.

A concrete example. A plant south of Quebec City orders a corporate video. Two days of shooting on the production floor, a three-minute film delivered, everyone is satisfied. Two years later the company wants a 30-second cut for its screen at a trade show. It has the film. It has neither the rushes nor a written answer about what it may do with them. The project stops there, because nobody asked the question when asking it cost nothing.

Holding the files is a question of possession. Holding the right to use them is a question of contract. A supplier can give you one without the other, in good faith.

So keep the two questions apart through the whole negotiation. Every time a supplier says the material is yours, ask which of the two he just settled. The answer is rarely both.

What the Act says, and what it does not

Three parts of the Copyright Act set the starting point. They are quoted here from the Justice Laws website, with the Act current to 3 September 2026.

First, the author is the first owner.

Subject to this Act, the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein.Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, subsection 13(1)

Second, subsection 13(2), which once gave ownership to the person who commissioned a photograph or an engraving, is repealed. There is no provision left in the Act that hands copyright to the payer simply because he paid. That is the point buyers find most surprising, and it carries this whole page.

Third, copyright does not move by conversation.

no assignment or grant is valid unless it is in writing signed by the owner of the right in respect of which the assignment or grant is made, or by the owner's duly authorized agentCopyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, subsection 13(4)

A verbal deal, a purchase order or a line on an invoice is not, on the face of that subsection, an assignment. A friendly exchange with the videographer is not one either. The Act, on the other hand, says nothing about who keeps the hard drive. That part is not decided by the statute but by your contract, which is exactly why it has to be in there.

Licence or assignment: what each one gives you

A licence is permission to use. It has a scope: the media covered, the territory, the term, and what you are allowed to change, which I go through on the page about the video usage licence. An assignment transfers the right itself, and the Act requires it to be in writing and signed by the owner. Both are legitimate. They do not cost the same and they do not leave you the same freedom three years later.

My own position is published on the Signal programme page: the client receives a lifetime content licence with no time limit, and the client owns the ad accounts. That is a licence, not an assignment of copyright, and I never present it as anything else. A lifetime licence settles the expensive question in practice, the expiry date. It does not claim to settle ownership.

Before signing, have every supplier on your list answer these in writing.

• Who owns the copyright in the footage once the mandate is over.
• What you receive exactly: a licence or an assignment, and if a licence, what its scope is.
• Whether the raw camera files are delivered, or only the final exports.
• Where the files are stored, in what format, and for how long.
• What happens to that material if the supplier stops trading.
• What you will be able to do, without paying for another shoot, when you want to recut the material.

One answer should end the conversation: we will sort that out later. After the shoot you have no leverage left, and the Act places the starting point with the author. A supplier who will not put his answer in writing has answered. A supplier who explains plainly why he keeps the rushes has given you something you can work with. These questions belong to the same conversation as price, and they explain a good share of the gap between two video quotes.

Why a studio sometimes refuses to hand over the rushes

A refusal is not automatically a red flag. Four reasons come up often, and they deserve a hearing before you conclude that something is being hidden.

• Unfinished work. Rushes hold the bad takes, the false starts, the version where the plant manager quotes the wrong number. None of it was ever meant to leave the edit.
• People on camera. The machinist agreed to appear in one specific film. What he agreed to for the unused takes is a separate question, to settle with your counsel before any file circulates.
• Music and licensed elements. A licence obtained for a final edit does not necessarily cover anything else. Ask what it covers, and for which use.
• Reputation. A studio whose material is recut by someone else sees its name attached to a result it never approved.

A buyer who understands those four reasons negotiates better than one who is convinced he is being cheated. The useful request is not give me everything. It is write down what I receive, what I may do with it, and what happens in three years.

When this does not apply to you

A company that will never recut its material does not need the rushes. If the video serves one page of a website and one campaign, and nobody in house will ever open an edit, demanding the raw files only buys you transfers and storage. In that case the useful ask is about the licence: term, media, territory, and the right to have new cutdowns produced from the existing material. That is almost always cheaper and more useful than possession of the files.

The same goes for a testimonial shot at a client's site. The material shows a third party inside its own facility, and recovering the rushes would hand you images you could not publish freely anyway. Here again the licence settles more than the hard drive does.

The question turns serious in the opposite case: a plant in operation that would be expensive to shoot again, equipment about to be replaced, a key person about to retire. That material cannot be reshot. It is the material worth negotiating over before the shoot rather than after. The rest of the production logic is on the video and content production page.

Sources

• Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42), section 13, Justice Laws Website, https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/section-13.html, fetched 23 September 2026, Act current to 3 September 2026.