Apologies if this is in the wrong thread, but the topic didn't really seem to fit anywhere else...
I am by no means an expert on this, but I wanted to share my experience and understand if anyone else has had much dealing with these types of companies?
In 2019 I worked with a company called South West News Services (SWNS) to produce a written feature, this also included some video, which I licensed to them for sale, the video went on to be sold to the likes of Unilad and several media groups around the world, despite the promise of a fee I never received any money from this company, which wasnΓÇÖt a big deal for me as my main goal was to promote my website and social media and although the written articles had backlinked to me, none of the videos gave credit ΓÇô so a mixed result, but overall I was happy with the reach and exposure.
In 2020 shortly after uploading some videos to my YouTube channel, I was approached by two companies: Carters news and Jukin Media. They both wanted me to license one of my videos for sale over their platforms, with the promise of global exposure for my content and a fee - having had some success with SWNS the year before I thought it would be worth exploring.
From the off both these companies were very pushy, which in hindsight should have been a warning.
Having done some research I understood the fee I would receive would be 50% of the sale price, half for me, half for them, my cut would be a nominal amount - in the region of £15 to £100 per video, per sale.
Both companies had very mixed reviews online, during my reading I also came across Newsflare, who again was offering something similar, Carters and Jukin wanted exclusivity on the same video, so I uploaded a different one to Newsflare to trial their platform.
I explained to both Carters and Jukin that the money wouldnΓÇÖt be the driving force behind my decision, I wanted credit and tags back to my YT/FB etc. and wanted the ability to share my content with other media groups, as several publishers had also expressed interest in featuring a few of my videos.
Both Carters and Jukin had said their customers have different editorial guidelines so couldnΓÇÖt guarantee tags (which is fair enough), but they could watermark my videos with my social handle ΓÇô Jukin also agreed that they could offer a non-exclusive license giving me the ability to share the content myself, so for this video, I decided to give Jukin a trial.
They sent through reams and reams of legal documents for me to sign, I tried to make sense of it but it was an incredibly complicated contract (and I deal with media contracts on a daily basis through my main day job), with my content being very seasonal I have a very small window for promotion, so with time of the essence, I just signed and uploaded the video to their platform.
Understanding this to be a non-exclusive deal I then set about sending this and a few of my other videos to media groups directly.
The next day my video was on the Daily Mail online, it was receiving hundreds of thousands of views but to my surprise, the watermark credited Jukin media – ok they haven’t credited me, its too late to do anything about it now, but I thought at least id get the fee… when I logged into my Jukin account a couple of months later the video wasn’t there, so I emailed them, the response I got said the video has been removed as it had been shared with other media groups.
The fee from the Daily mail appears to have just vanished into the pockets of Jukin media.
It would appear these companies (Jukin in particular) will say anything to get you to sign up with them, then do whatever they like with very little recourse available to me.
However, I must say I had a very good experience with Newsflare, I made a sale within a few days, with the fee landing in Paypal account the very next day ΓÇô this platform appears to be all self-service with no one hounding me like the others.
In summary, IΓÇÖve decided to never license my video content via a 3rd party again, but if I did, I would use Newsflare.
I completely appreciate my experience might have been an anomaly, so IΓÇÖd love to hear anyone elseΓÇÖs experience of these types of companies, good and bad?
I am by no means an expert on this, but I wanted to share my experience and understand if anyone else has had much dealing with these types of companies?
In 2019 I worked with a company called South West News Services (SWNS) to produce a written feature, this also included some video, which I licensed to them for sale, the video went on to be sold to the likes of Unilad and several media groups around the world, despite the promise of a fee I never received any money from this company, which wasnΓÇÖt a big deal for me as my main goal was to promote my website and social media and although the written articles had backlinked to me, none of the videos gave credit ΓÇô so a mixed result, but overall I was happy with the reach and exposure.
In 2020 shortly after uploading some videos to my YouTube channel, I was approached by two companies: Carters news and Jukin Media. They both wanted me to license one of my videos for sale over their platforms, with the promise of global exposure for my content and a fee - having had some success with SWNS the year before I thought it would be worth exploring.
From the off both these companies were very pushy, which in hindsight should have been a warning.
Having done some research I understood the fee I would receive would be 50% of the sale price, half for me, half for them, my cut would be a nominal amount - in the region of £15 to £100 per video, per sale.
Both companies had very mixed reviews online, during my reading I also came across Newsflare, who again was offering something similar, Carters and Jukin wanted exclusivity on the same video, so I uploaded a different one to Newsflare to trial their platform.
I explained to both Carters and Jukin that the money wouldnΓÇÖt be the driving force behind my decision, I wanted credit and tags back to my YT/FB etc. and wanted the ability to share my content with other media groups, as several publishers had also expressed interest in featuring a few of my videos.
Both Carters and Jukin had said their customers have different editorial guidelines so couldnΓÇÖt guarantee tags (which is fair enough), but they could watermark my videos with my social handle ΓÇô Jukin also agreed that they could offer a non-exclusive license giving me the ability to share the content myself, so for this video, I decided to give Jukin a trial.
They sent through reams and reams of legal documents for me to sign, I tried to make sense of it but it was an incredibly complicated contract (and I deal with media contracts on a daily basis through my main day job), with my content being very seasonal I have a very small window for promotion, so with time of the essence, I just signed and uploaded the video to their platform.
Understanding this to be a non-exclusive deal I then set about sending this and a few of my other videos to media groups directly.
The next day my video was on the Daily Mail online, it was receiving hundreds of thousands of views but to my surprise, the watermark credited Jukin media – ok they haven’t credited me, its too late to do anything about it now, but I thought at least id get the fee… when I logged into my Jukin account a couple of months later the video wasn’t there, so I emailed them, the response I got said the video has been removed as it had been shared with other media groups.
The fee from the Daily mail appears to have just vanished into the pockets of Jukin media.
It would appear these companies (Jukin in particular) will say anything to get you to sign up with them, then do whatever they like with very little recourse available to me.
However, I must say I had a very good experience with Newsflare, I made a sale within a few days, with the fee landing in Paypal account the very next day ΓÇô this platform appears to be all self-service with no one hounding me like the others.
In summary, IΓÇÖve decided to never license my video content via a 3rd party again, but if I did, I would use Newsflare.
I completely appreciate my experience might have been an anomaly, so IΓÇÖd love to hear anyone elseΓÇÖs experience of these types of companies, good and bad?
