If the ordering party refuses to accept the cultural works, can the producer ask for the final payment?
In order to better interact with the audience and meet the audience’s needs for diversification of cultural works, more and more film and television companies choose to cooperate with professional short video creation companies, and attract more fans’ attention by publishing trailers of film and television works, creative tidbits and second-generation short videos on social media. Due to the subjectivity of the production standards of video cultural works, both parties often have disputes over whether the works conform to the contract.
On June 13, 2020, the film and television company signed a video production contract with the video creation company, stipulating that the creation company would provide scheme planning, shooting, video production and other services for a short video project of a hit drama of the film and television company, and deliver it before June 25, 2020, with a total price of 500,000 yuan. After signing the contract, the film and television company paid the advance payment to the creative company according to the contract, and the creative company organized the filming and successfully delivered some videos in advance. A few days later, the creative company produced and delivered the rest of the videos, but the film and television company did not give back the final revision opinions to the creative company because of differences with its upstream companies on the content of video production, and refused to pay the final payment of the contract. If the two parties fail to negotiate, the creative company appealed to Beijing No.3 Intermediate People’s Court, demanding that the film and television company pay the final payment of the contract.
In this case, according to the performance of the contract, the creative company fulfilled the project planning, filming and other work according to the contract, and delivered it to the film and television company. In the lawsuit, the film and television company claimed not to recognize the delivery behavior of the creative company on the grounds that the employees who received the video were employees of the upstream company rather than employees of its company. However, according to the contract performance and communication between the two parties, the employee, on behalf of the film and television company, has participated in the contract performance process, and the related WeChat chat records are also inconsistent with the film and television company’s claims, so the court will not adopt them.
According to the production contract, the film and television company has the right to propose amendments, and the creative company should actively cooperate. Judging from the communication records between the two parties, it can be proved that the creative company has made many revisions because the film and television company proposed amendments to the video, and has been actively communicating and urging acceptance. However, due to the disagreement between the film and television company and its upstream companies on the content of video production, the film and television company has not given final feedback on the modification opinions of the video delivered in the later period, resulting in the delay in completing the acceptance. The responsibility lies with the film and television company. Film and television companies are obviously slow to perform their contractual rights and prevent the achievement of payment terms in disguise. According to Article 577 of the Civil Code of People’s Republic of China (PRC), if one party fails to perform its contractual obligations or fails to meet the requirements, it shall bear the liabilities for breach of contract such as continuing to perform. Therefore, the creative company has the right to request the film and television company to pay the final payment of the contract.
The judge suggested:
This case is a contract dispute involving the production of cultural works such as videos, movies and television, and such cases should be classified as contract disputes in refining the cause of action.
In this case, the two parties signed a written contract and reached a final contract for the creative company to shoot short videos for the film and television company. According to the contract, the creative company submits the finished products to the film and television company for acceptance, and the film and television company will issue a confirmation letter of acceptance after the acceptance is qualified; If the acceptance is unqualified, the creative company should modify it until the film and television company is satisfied. From the actual performance point of view, because the specific standards of cultural works produced in such contracts are not clear and general, the ordering party often puts forward revision requirements several times according to its own needs.
At the same time, the contract does not clearly stipulate the number, standard and time of revision of the works, and the acceptance decision is entirely in the hands of the ordering party. In the process of repeated revision, the producer often fails to complete the revision within the agreed time because the ordering party is too lazy to feedback the revision opinions, or because the ordering party’s acceptance requirements are inconsistent before and after, resulting in the cultural works still unable to meet the acceptance standards after repeated revisions. In this case, it is easy for both parties to have disputes over whether the contract has been fulfilled. In this case, the film and television company refused to pay the final payment to the creative company on the grounds that it failed to pass the acceptance, and the two sides had a dispute.
Article 7 of the Civil Code of People’s Republic of China (PRC) stipulates that civil subjects should follow the principle of good faith, uphold honesty and keep their promises when engaging in civil activities. Article 509 stipulates that the parties shall fully perform their obligations as agreed.
First of all, when signing the contract, the two sides should make a clear agreement on the preliminary copy planning, filming, video editing, sound effect production standards, and the number of feedback changes of cultural works. Secondly, when performing the contract, the ordering party should maintain the consistency of the standards for the production of cultural works, and exercise the right to feedback and modify opinions in time, and should not be slow to perform or prevent the achievement of the contract performance conditions. Thirdly, the producer and the ordering party should fully communicate with each other on creative ideas, artistic styles, forms of expression, etc. before the production, and form clear opinions. During the production, they should also maintain efficient communication with the ordering party on artistic creation, and complete the production and revision within the specified time. Both parties should abide by the contract, follow the principle of good faith, uphold honesty and maintain good communication, so as to lay a good foundation for further cooperation and jointly create more high-quality cultural works.
In the process of reviewing the performance of Wenchuang video production contract, it is necessary to meet the artistic production requirements of the fixed author, and also to ensure that the producer can timely and reasonably fulfill the obligation of creative modification and the right to claim remuneration. Disputes over the performance of Wenchuang video production contracts are mostly caused by the dissatisfaction of both parties with the quality of the works, which is manifested in differences on the quality of the production results. The main reason is that the contract is unclear about the production effect or achievement, and even if there is an agreement, there are disputes due to the inconsistency of feedback and revision opinions in actual performance. Even some contracts are based on the strong position of the ordering party, and the agreed censorship standards of Wenchuang video are extremely subjective. In this case, the court can use the provisions of the ordering party’s acceptance obligation to infer the contract performance behavior of both parties in the production process of Wenchuang video works.
In the production process, the ordering party and the producer usually agree on the time nodes for the implementation stages such as planning scheme, script, first draft, revised draft and final draft, so that the two parties can exchange opinions and give feedback for many times. If the ordering party is not satisfied with the Wenchuang video delivered by the producer, it should put forward clear, complete and unified revision opinions in time, so as to facilitate the producer to make revisions according to the feedback. The producer should also actively and diligently perform the revision obligations, and both parties have the obligation to promote the works to pass the review.
Under the background of digital economy, the rapid development of cultural and creative industries requires strict law-abiding and strict judicial protection of excellent culture. Practitioners of all parties should operate in good faith and perform their duties with high quality, and work together to promote the prosperity and development of the digital culture industry.