whats standard dvd distribution deal structure?

Yeah, rip off the producer as best they can from what have heard from sooo many producers over the years.

I'll pay you on the back end

65/35 but the important shit is in the fine print.

It's not the split that's important - it's getting paid. And what rights you are giving up. My best advice - do not give them VOD and your 2257 docs. You lose all control of your content and may not even know where it's being sold.

Good luck...

This is the tough part. How can they make DVD's and distribute them without the 2257 docs?


"do not give them your 2257 docs"

Trying to prevent that...

Totally agree. Im doing all web , im working only someone selling physical dvds

in short: forget that

been doing it for 15 years now. The first deal always goes nice. It is after that you have to wonder because they will make deals and cut you out of the picture if they have all your shit.

I'm a photo person, not a video one, but there are no standard royalty deals in place for secondary sales?

It's really hard to control your content once they have everything needed to sell it. Not to mention, when companies like Manwin waltz into a studio and give them a nice check for X amount of titles, it's very easy yours accidentally (or intentionally) end up in the mix and given away for free on all of the Manwin tubes. That actually happened to me and I had a heart attack. Luckily, everyone on all sides were cool about it and we got it all offline, but it still happened.

Scenes can also get mixed into comp deals and international rights deals that you can get left out of and so on. As soon as they have all the docs, it is more or less theirs and there is no telling where it will end up in the long run. Even when dealing with honest guys, when they have a library of 10s of 1000s of scenes, or even just a few 1000, accidents and mix-ups do happen.

I think Pornlaw has it right.
Also, I recommend speaking with Howard from Exile Distribution n LA.

If you have the "right" content that appeals to an older generation, you can do alright. Young buyers are mostly buying to steal and upload.

If you can hold on to 2257 and just give the dvd people a custodian address you are in best shape.

First runs are the best. After that, distributors may be selling your title for 25 cents-50 cents per to unload them. Producers never seem to get that. It is a necessity for them to move dvds out.

Also keep in mind that most of the porn companies spend less than 50 cents per unit to produce your dvd. They say anything else find someone else.

As someone said above, "the devil is in the details."

We (my wife and I) did a deal with a distributor and purposely did not give them 2257 docs and told them that every VOD/Net deal had to be cleared with us first.

We maintained the records for 2257 which for DVDs is legally sufficient. For VOD/Net those companies need the docs or they need you to sign an agreement staying you will be their 3rd party record holders.

Despite that her content still found it's way on to VOD sites without our approval. When we found out - the VOD sites stopped paying the distributor and actually cut her a check to make up for all of the money they wrongly paid to the distributor to forgo a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Realize some larger DVD retailers won't sell your hard goods without being able to sell VOD. It's a required. In that case send the docs yourself to the retailers. Sorry to say but do not trust any distributor. The DVDs they will sell out of the back door on you should be enough of a side deal to keep them happy. That's almost impossible to stop.

Keep your docs... And physically count you product each month. If 500 are replicated make sure you can actually see 500 units in the warehouse. And continue to count them as they sell. 50 going our the warehouse door isn't a lot for you but if you're distributor is doing that to 10 lines every month, it's a nice little cash reserve for him.