Law and the social enterprise documentary

I'm often asked about strategy for making a social enterprise documentary. Today on the npenterprise listserv, Allen Bromberger--one of the leading social enterprise lawyers in the U.S., and a really cool person to boot--provided this succinct explanation of the legal options of American social enterprise documentarians:

If donors are giving their funds to the nonprofit (or a fiscal sponsor), the nonprofit can hire the filmmaker to make the film. In that scenario, the nonprofit will usually own the rights to the film. Or, the nonprofit can fund the film in the form of a grant or an investment, but if the filmmaker retains the rights to the movie, the nonprofit has to be careful it isn't an "excess benefit" transaction (ie., the nonprofit pays too much or gets too little, thereby benefitting the filmmaker unduly). Finally, the nonprofit and the filmmaker can do the film as a joint venture and share rights, use and revenues (if the film generates any).

So much depends on where the funds come from and how the film will be used. I strongly recommend a written contract prepared by someone who knows what they are doing.