Artwork Property

[Stephen Marsh]

Back in the days of paste-up, film and the like, the legal stance here in my neck of the woods was that the client was paying for the printed work and was not entitled to the mechanicals and other bits that were used to produce the printed job.

With the move to full digital, similar groundwork was established, that the client was paying for the printed job and was not paying for the data (page layout, vector illustration files or raster images).

We don't spell this out in writing/contract before we start a job.

Of course, we offer design and artwork creation services. Of course, we do a lot of work for below cost or free in order to get the printing, or to make the client's crappy files print better and/or to make us stand out from others that don't fix the incoming junk.

We often receive requests from clients or designers working for clients, some that may or may not have used our services for years, requesting the artwork files so that they can make changes before "they give us the job for printing".

Of course, we may or may not ever see this print work again.

This cheeses me off, however the management do not seem overly concerned.

How do others handle this situation?


Stephen Marsh

 

[Glenn McDowall]

Its best to not get worked up about it and just burn it all to disc. Obviously if its a lot of hours you could charge an unarchive cost. If the customer genuinely is making corrections and coming back then its going to be a lot easier dealing with correct files than fixing junk again.

If you wanted to be difficult you could just supply back the incoming junk.

In the old quark days, I've seen printers convert all the pics to DCS2 with jpeg encoding.
These days probably just saving the file in the latest versions of Quark or InDesign would render it unopenable at the client end!

 

[oxburger]

As a printing company employee AND a freelance designer, it's always been my firm belief that ALL files should go to the customer/client. If I've created something on their behalf, I've charged accordingly so that they "own" the finished product in all forms, printed and digital.

 

[dabob]

printing trade customs on the web . . . here's one from San Diego

PIASD - Trade Customs

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Thank you all for your replies...

dabob, thank you for the link!

oxburger, I take your point, however AFAIK that is not standard practice in my neck on the woods. As well as working in prepress, I have also worked in design studios - so perhaps my view is a little biased in that direction. As printers now do design and art cutting out separate studios, it is good not to run things at a loss. That being said, many printers do devalue their art departments and run things at a loss to gain print work. To then give this work away for free, that has been undercharged or not charged at all?

Glenn McDowall, yes, an archive retrieval fee is available, as you say if (a big if) we do see the work again - then we may have a better file, depending on the designer and how badly they screw up our good artwork (such as adding 4C elements to a 2C job etc).


Stephen Marsh

 

[MickyJ]

If we create the artwork, we archive it for use later and will send it to another printer if requested. They paid for that.

But we have situation where a customer is requesting we send ALL previous artwork we had printed for them to another printer, but they supplied the artwork to us. I'm the only prepress guy in the shop so this is very time consuming and the only reason they are asking is because we fired their favorite sales person (a personal friend of theirs too. he was a DOUCHE!) We told them it wasn't in our contracts to archive jobs for customers that weren't printing with us and they'd have to send their own copies to the new printer. Haven't heard back to that response yet, but I'm sure someone is going get litigious about it. Seems to me that if they sent the artwork to you, it's a courtesy to archive it for the customer, not a responsibility.

That being said, it helps to pick and choose your battles.

 

[Ultimate]

Turn it into a customer retension tool

Turn it into a customer retension tool

Hi guys,

I suggest a different approach, from all perspectives (client, production, owners, etc).
I would charge a "file processing fee" which is 105% refundable (applicable) on next purchase of the job.
This would act as a retention tool for the client to reorder from you;
It would cover expenses for time spent on preparing files;
You and the owners will be covered;
Client will be able to obtain the files.

It would discourage the client from going to a competitor in order to save a couple $$.

Hope this helps
Ray Duval
Ultimate Technographics

www. imposition.com
raymond @ imposition.com

 

[dabob]

MickyJ

We have faced this situation also in the past . .. . if you don't give them the artwork/files you will burn them forever and they will never return - but, depending on your workflow, for instance you could say that you are a pdf based work flow and that while you have the final pdf used for plate production you normally only keep X number of weeks worth of original files archived. This way you appear to be cooperating but will limit your expense of collecting ALL of the files for the @Q##$%@#%^#&$s and leave a not so bad taste in their mouth . . . . but on a second note - they should have kept their originals - we had one where a client left town and basically told us to FOAD . .. about six months later their server crashed and lost all of their artwork and no backups . . . they contacted us begging . . .. $6000.00 later they had all of the files for the work that we did for them . . . it depends on which way you want to go . . .

 

[PrePress Guru]

Same here, our policy is to keep files live for 30 days then archive permanently to LTO tapes.
Restore fees are clearly marked in our pricing. We never give out interim files and that is also spelled out.
They remain our property but the copyright is still the originators. The interim files can be purchased for a fee but if we like the client we usually work something out.

Really the only thing that clients are entitled to are what they pay for. If they only pay for printing and not design, then we don’t have an obligation to give them any files.
If they request the files, we send flattened versions and charge a disc burning fee or restore fee.
If they pay for the design or retouching, we have to spell out exactly what they are receiving for what they are paying.
Its worth taking the time to explain what they are getting or it can turn into a fight and no one wants the lawyers involved.
For clients who are just not worth the time, there is always the option of “we didn’t back it up” or “it was deleted”.

Then we have the problem of archiving customer supplied files…AHHHHH!!!
Lots of wasted tapes and dvds floating around the office, its a nightmare and we just don’t have the space.
We return all original materials with the paid job. If anything is left after 6 months or the job isn’t paid for, they go into the trash but we call first.
They can either pay for shipping it (up front) or its off to the dump. Not our problem anymore!!!
No exceptions and we keep documentation of the shipment. When and of they can come back years later and complain, we have proof that they didn’t respond or we shipped it.

 

[Sev]

We archive every job, including dated jobs. Sure it takes time, but when things are slow, it gives me something to do. And when a client has a disk go bad and they lose their files and come to us, who looks like the good guys? We do! We have saved many clients that lost files, and we have them.
As for who owns the files, if the customer pays us for some alterations or design work, then they get the files, since they paid for them. In the good old days of film and plates, it was typical policy to not return film or flats. As was said in an earlier post, they paid for the print job.

-Sev

 

[RNRPRINTINGNMAILING]

Hey Stephen.
Short and sweet if it is not in black and white( contract) than it belongs to the customer.
I just went through this with another printer. I told the customer they had to get the files and it was not my place to call the other printer. When she showed me the bill it gave a total price which was 10,000 16 page s.c. 4/4 on 100# gloss text, folded and stitched and delivered to their door. But the Key was there was no mention of additional art charges. just said job will print upon customers sig on proofs.
So in a nut shell dot all your IIIIIIII'S and cross all your TTTTTTTTTTTTT'S
Oh conclusion to story the printer refused to part with the art work. so they got sued. and lost a lot more than what the time and court cost were. ( food for thought)