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<font face="Arial">In our non-theater design business always provide
storage space on our server for any project that needs it. No
cost to the external person/company. We'd just give them login
information that would expire after the end of the project. This
way we're in total control of the data.<br>
<br>
As for anything else, if you don't specify they need it, then it's
their cost of doing business.<br>
<br>
Note that in general, vendors provide their own storage (including
backups) but may charge you to give you a physical copy. Many
times we had customers lose the DVR we gave them (they would give
the only copy to a contractor to fabricate something and never see
it again) and have to buy a backup copy from us. We charged
enough that they would hopefully make their own copies.<br>
<br>
In California, we had to charge sales tax on one specific file
type when we handed over physical media. So that's a separate
issue to get sorted out.<br>
</font><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 03-Sep-26 1:06, Nina Trotto via
Stagecraft wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:14C43FBA-9FE7-4300-8EA6-1EFD5E4C2685@gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<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>
<br>
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