What I said was that there was no “work-for-hire” agreement in a legal sense. But that such an agreement existed in a non-legal sense. But to a lot of lawyers, that latter statement is meaningless - to them things can only exist in a legal sense.
These lawyers are like some economists, who see everything in economic terms. Tell an economist you made a decision on a non-economic basis and he won’t understand what you mean - to him there’s no such thing as a non-economic basis.
“Work-for-hire” is a term created by the law for use by the law in order to settle questions of law and has no relevance other than with respect to the law. It has no significant non-legal meaning. It certainly has no meaning that contradicts its legal meaning. It’s like saying “I filed a habeus corpus motion in federal court, but not in a legal sense.”
Colloquially speaking, this may be the case. But in the law, the terms used are “written” and “oral.” When speaking in legal terms, one ought to be precise.
No, we didn’t have a written contract, but we do have an oral one. They asked me to do the work, I did the work. I couldn’t sell the video because, as was pointed out, I don’t own the copyright on the performance or the songs (all originals). The band’s desire is to post excerpts of show on YouTube for promotional purposes for the original price, with the option of getting the entire show to sell on DVD for an additional amount.
The venue owner can post a link to the YouTube video once the band has decided which songs best represent them.