<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Hi all,</span><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">We’re currently discussing at my theater what our policy will be for various kinds of software reimbursement requests we’ve been getting from designers, and I’d love to know what other theaters or universities are doing. These requests fall into a few different categories: There’s Dropbox, which is where we host our show folders, all which are bigger than the free Dropbox account allows for (2GB). Then there’s miscellaneous design software, like Vectorworks, Adobe, etc. And last, we’ve gotten one request for reimbursement of AI software (Midjourney, Envato Elements), which I have strong personal feelings about that aren’t necessarily relevant here. (I’m a member of the production management team, but not the DoP – I don’t set policy, but I do write and recommend a lot of it, like in this case.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Dropbox: This one seems decently cut and dry to me, we’re asking the designer to use a specific software to access our show files, it’s somewhat but certainly not universally industry standard, reimbursements are reasonable. How are other people handling this one?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">The miscellaneous design software, like Vectorworks or Adobe, isn’t software we’re requiring anyone to use – we explicitly state in contracts that the software is the choice of the designer, they just have to provide us with a couple of options of file type when it comes to drafting. This seems like a reasonable overhead for an independent contractor, especially since we don’t require something specific. Does this align with other institutions or am I missing something?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">The AI software is a non-starter to me, both because it seems like murky legal ground for a designer to use it at all, even if we’re talking about research images or concepts and nothing that ends up in the final design, but also because it’s fully optional. I’d love to hear if other institutions have set policies already for the usage of AI in creative areas. My org’s leadership is not anti-AI, unfortunately, but the staff overwhelmingly is (we did a staff survey, this isn’t just my assumption), and that’s definitely causing some tension as we try to set policies.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Thank you all! I’m happy to be wrong about any of my opinions above and I’m looking forward to hearing what else is out there.</span></div><div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Best,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Nina</span></div></div></body></html>