Hi Mary,
With films and videos, the copyright belongs jointly to the producer and the director:
9 Authorship of work.
(1) In this Part “author”, in relation to a work, means the person who creates it.
(2) That person shall be taken to be—
- (aa) in the case of a sound recording, the producer;
(ab) in the case of a film, the producer and the principal director;
I think that in this case the director would be the person who shot the video, and the producer is probably you, the organisers, because the definition of a producer is given in Section 178 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act as:
“producer”, in relation to a sound recording or a film, means the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the making of the sound recording or film are undertaken;
In other words, there is something of a stalemate: he can't exploit the video without your permission, and you can't without his. That said, although there was no written contract I think there was clearly a contract in that you engaged him to shoot the video and presumably paid him the agreed fee. On that basis I would be reasonably certain a court would find that it was implicit in the contract that you would have a licence to use the video, although maybe not one to sell or give away copies of it, which I assume is what you would like to be able to do.
The videographer will not be able to sell or distribute copies without your permission. I assume that the dancers gave their permission for the show to be videoed.
182 Consent required for recording, &c. of live performance.
(1) A performer’s rights are infringed by a person who, without his consent—
- (a) makes a recording of the whole or any substantial part of a qualifying performance directly from the live performance,
(b) broadcasts live, the whole or any substantial part of a qualifying performance,
(c) makes a recording of the whole or any substantial part of a qualifying performance directly from a broadcast of, the live performance.
(2)
repealed
(3) In an action for infringement of a performer’s rights brought by virtue of this section damages shall not be awarded against a defendant who shows that at the time of the infringement he believed on reasonable grounds that consent had been given.
It sounds as if you both need to have a calm discussion about how to resolve this without the need for lawyers or the courts, which would be in neither of your interests.
Good luck