posted May 21, 2008 05:21 PM
Our best customer, we designed a branding iron with alot of effects to use as a wall graphic.We get a call from their t-shirt guy to get the file so he can make shirts with it. Question, is it our customer who owns the artwork? Is it now a logo that needs to copyrited? Do we charge the shirt guy or the customer to give them the artwork?
-------------------- Tom & Kathy Durham House Springs, MO Posts: 654 | From: House Springs, MO | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted May 21, 2008 06:15 PM
Wasn't it discussed when the customer FIRST ORDERED IT? I always get that done BEFORE something like this happens, that way there is no question.
X amount for artwork PERIOD.
X amount for wall graphic.
X amount for truck lettering.
If they bought a logo from you in the first place, it would be THEIRS, since they bought it.
my 2 cents.
-------------------- Mike Meyer Sign Painter 189 1st Ave n P.O. Box 3 Mazeppa, Mn 55956
We are not selling, we are staying here in Mazeppa....we cannot re-create what we have here....not in another lifetime! SO Here we are!!!!!!!
posted May 21, 2008 11:11 PM
Ok, say you designed a cool restroom sign. Do you discuss with the client who owns the design rights to this sign. Down the road this guy wants to have another company mass produce this design for other stores. Do you just give it away? The client did buy the first one from you. I'm thinking you sold him the sign, not the design.
-------------------- Tom & Kathy Durham House Springs, MO Posts: 654 | From: House Springs, MO | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted May 22, 2008 08:10 AM
Put a disclaimer on your proof sheets. This will alieviate any question and because its on a proof sheet, the customer needs to sign it any way. Now if a customer wants to buy the art from your "Graphic Design Dept." That's great. After they pay for it they can do as they wish.
[ May 22, 2008, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Lee McKee ]
-------------------- Lee McKee McKee Studios Birmingham, Al Planet Earth (sometimes) Posts: 277 | From: Birmingham, Al | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted May 23, 2008 10:16 PM
I absolutely agree with Mike and Lee. If you have disclaimer on your proof sheets and your invoices, for small signs that won't require a proof, you're still covered.
-------------------- Rick Heller Ohio Technical College 1374 E. 51st Street Cleveland, OH 44103 IOAFS Posts: 210 | From: Cleveland, OH | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted May 24, 2008 06:10 AM
Hiya Tom & Kathy, Unless your invoice or purchase agreement provides for the transfer of ownership of the design, you still own it. That being said, it may cause some hard feelings because the client may have "assumed" that when they purchased the sign, they purchased the artwork too. To help reduce the potential of "hard feelings" with future clients, it's a good idea to add a copyright disclaimer to your invoice. It could be as simple as "this design remains property of Weber Hills Signs and can not be reproduced in any manner without written permision from the creator". Although this has been debated before and I've been told I'm wrong for doing this, I do not transfer rights to reproduce my original designs when a client buys a product from me. It requires a seperate purchase agreement at a much higher price than the original sign or graphic because the client is now using it as a logo. Another approach is to license the use of the design, similar to what Brian mentioned here... http://www.letterville.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/1/50157.html#000004 Although I havent run into this situation yet, I would just charge 10% of the cost of the shirts to use the artwork.
Havin' fun,
Checkers
-------------------- a.k.a. Brian Born www.CheckersCustom.com Harrisburg, Pa Work Smart, Play Hard Posts: 3775 | From: Harrisburg, Pa. U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted May 24, 2008 12:21 PM
Thanks guys. We have rethought this process and have put a disclaimer on both the estimate sheet and invoice. This particular graphic was a part of larger decorating project and we could never list or protray all that went into the project prior to decorating as we just "do" what we want, then bill them.
-------------------- Tom & Kathy Durham House Springs, MO Posts: 654 | From: House Springs, MO | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted May 27, 2008 05:00 PM
Tom & Kathy, You may want to do a search of this in Letterville. It has been discussed many times.
If it is for a good customer, and there has been enough money made on the rest of the job, I will sometimes (usually) allow the artwork to go out for a TeeShirt or menu. I will not, however, convert it into anything other than a PDF file for them to use. It takes awhile to do conversions, so I will provide a disc, for a fee, usually around $100 for several formats - more if there is a lot of manipulating of the file to accommodate things like making it a Vector file from a Raster.
I just recently had an unpleasant episode with a "former" good client. He found someone to make coroplast signs cheaper than I could - of COURSE they're cheaper - they didn't have to go through the design processes I had to with this client! We have done several modifications to this design over a period of a year. We've had hundreds of signs printed over the course of the years, each a different design (builder's roadside signs). We finally had the product he wanted. Printed it a few hundred times. Then he found the cheap guy.
I reluctantly released the artwork for that sign to him, with the express written notice that the release was for THAT sign ONLY! He was in a rush to get them printed, they've been having financial problems, and I was being "nice". I let him know that all of the other work that I have done for them, still remains MY property, and that I would consider selling him the rights on a piece-by-piece basis. There have been many signs for them over the years for many different properties. I really just expect them to have them reproduced anyway, but I let them know, in no uncertain terms, that I was not releasing them for free.
Will I follow up the threats? Who knows, probably not - I've had a good run with them - and they may decide to come back to me when they see how hard it is to get good design from that hack!
-------------------- Gene Golden Gettysburg Signs Gettysburg PA 17325 717-334-0200 genegolden@gettysburgsigns.com
"Art is knowing when to stop." Posts: 1578 | From: Gettysburg, PA | Registered: Jun 2003
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