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Back Up & Sound Dept. Liability Back up of data - Methods and Best Practices have been thoroughly discussed – and will continue to evolve. We all know we want to do a great job, provide perfect, organized data and get called back again. But what happens if perfection isn’t achieved? This thread is not about Practices, hardware and uploading. All well covered. This is about the liability of the Sound Department and ultimately the Sound Mixer. What is the legal “hand over” moment? The passing of responsibility? Has this ever been tested with any kind of law? Today’s basic workflow: Record on pro recorder that has at least 2 media. Mid day and/or at the end of the day Hand media (CF or External HD, DVD ROM etc.) to production via Data Handler or DIT. Is this the moment? Would the moment be, when they hand back the media? Most Mixers keep some kind of “Back Up” copy for at least: Next day? End of week? End of project? Release of Project? At what point does Production / Producer assume liability? And with this, if “something” happens and they come looking for replacement files, who pays for the time to make it happen? Of course we want to be the heroes – save the day – many of us have and will again, BUT what are we setting ourselves up for by providing various “Back-Up Services”. It has become expected, demanded – what is our liability? If something went down and we could not provide a “Back Up” would we be liable for our time and equipment for a re-shoot, or possibily the full cost of a re-shoot? Lastly, If we are archiving somebody elses intellectual property on our computer (for the protection of them) and it gets hacked and released some how - what is our liability ? Anybody have a lawyer friend to pass this by?

...or another "prosumer"... any hand (ear) on this? https://www.zoom-na.com/products/field-video-recording/field-recording/zoom-h5-handy-recorder