FAQ: Tricky Situations

• What if a factory asks to download or use the film / video? As films are uploaded to Vimeo and manufacturers can use the embed link for their own websites and uses from there. On occasion a listing might like a hard copy of the film for an exhibition or trade show so we will send them the .mp4 file. However, it is worth making clear that we prefer they don’t edit or re-upload the film to other platforms such as YouTube which decreases the quality.

• What if a commercial publication asks to use the photographs? When this happens we explain that the Creative Commons license is for noncommercial purposes only, and that if their publication is for sale they need to pay a fee to reuse the photographs.

• What if a factory asks to be refilmed? This happens less often with larger, more established companies - but is frequent with makerspaces often hopping between low rent building spaces or merging manufacturers who are growing and require larger premises. You will need to manage your budget and team accordingly.

• What if a factory decides they don’t want to be listed, after seeing the film? This has happened! In the situation we ended up releasing the images to the factory so that they didn’t go to waste, and said that if in the future they would like to be listed just to get back in touch.

• When people email me asking for lists of manufacturers, what do I say? Usually it is pretty quick to send individuals links to the appropriate manufacturers (or even just a link to the results of the search term they are looking for). If you don’t have that process, say you will add it to a ‘to find’ list (then try to look for that process when you are next researching listings). If it is more bespoke manufacturing advice then we signpost you back to the ‘can I pick your brain’ question tip in the previous section!