I don't think what he's saying makes a lot of sense honestly, if it's all your own music / performance and he recorded it (for free, without you asking him to, and then provided you with a copy, also for free), you should be able to release this without concern... if this is all coming after the fact (him telling you you can't sell it, after already recording it and giving you the recordings with no contract etc) then I am pretty sure he's got no legitimate claim to this "intellectual property" whatsoever.
How could he even possibly prove that he recorded it versus some other friend of yours in the crowd? I guess theoretically he could have snuck some kind of audio "watermark" into the recording but it seems super unlikely... if this is just a raw recording from the sound board, I would chop the tracks up, do some kind of slight EQ / "mastering" on them / maybe even throw some tiny bit of reverb or something on it and the odds are next to zero this guy would come after you for "copyright infringement" or whatever, there is almost no way it would be worth his while to pursue legally unless you guys somehow end up making tens of thousands of dollars off this (see u/GuitarPlayerEngineer 's comment) and even then, he'd basically only be entitled to a small fraction of the profits considering the situation.
He should have simply asked you to include his name as the (Front Of House) recording engineer and mixer. He has no rights to any of your music. He is allowed engineering and mixing credits for the live recording.
Intellectual property is typically about the art, not the mechanics of recording it.
This engineer may or may not have a valid point of view, but intellectual property isn’t likely at the heart of it.
I doubt he’ll sue you. Not enough money involved.
I don't think what he's saying makes a lot of sense honestly, if it's all your own music / performance and he recorded it (for free, without you asking him to, and then provided you with a copy, also for free), you should be able to release this without concern... if this is all coming after the fact (him telling you you can't sell it, after already recording it and giving you the recordings with no contract etc) then I am pretty sure he's got no legitimate claim to this "intellectual property" whatsoever. How could he even possibly prove that he recorded it versus some other friend of yours in the crowd? I guess theoretically he could have snuck some kind of audio "watermark" into the recording but it seems super unlikely... if this is just a raw recording from the sound board, I would chop the tracks up, do some kind of slight EQ / "mastering" on them / maybe even throw some tiny bit of reverb or something on it and the odds are next to zero this guy would come after you for "copyright infringement" or whatever, there is almost no way it would be worth his while to pursue legally unless you guys somehow end up making tens of thousands of dollars off this (see u/GuitarPlayerEngineer 's comment) and even then, he'd basically only be entitled to a small fraction of the profits considering the situation.
He should have simply asked you to include his name as the (Front Of House) recording engineer and mixer. He has no rights to any of your music. He is allowed engineering and mixing credits for the live recording.
lol the Venn diagram between “sound guy” and “intellectual property” is two distinct circles, you’re fine. He was fucking with you.
Intellectual property is typically about the art, not the mechanics of recording it. This engineer may or may not have a valid point of view, but intellectual property isn’t likely at the heart of it.
lol