2013Legal / Business Practices forum
Concerns about an unauthorized operator directory website and its business practices
13 years old. Gear and prices may have changed since.
DisputedParticipants disagreed and reached no conclusion. Read the findings as positions, not as an answer.
What the thread found
- A website listing Steadicam operators in Los Angeles included people who had not consented to be listed and were unaware of their inclusion.
- The site operator claimed to function as a public directory similar to search engines, sourcing names from public filings rather than direct submissions.
- The site's submission form requested specific qualifications including filmography, experience categories, and availability, raising questions about data collection intentions.
- Some forum participants questioned whether the service was operating as an unlicensed agent by matching operators to jobs without established relationships or knowledge of the operators' actual capabilities.
- The site initially displayed a list of approximately 50 operators despite having only six who had voluntarily signed up.
- Permission to use the Steadicam logo and footage from operators' reels was questioned as potentially unlicensed use of intellectual property.
- The website was published before completion, with operators' names subsequently removed from the public listing.
Depends on
- The discussion is from 2013 and the current status of the website is unknown.
- Some claims about the site operator's intentions are speculative based on suspicious initial presentation rather than confirmed facts.
- It is unclear whether the site operator obtained proper permissions from all rights holders for logos and content used.