Graphic Design - Copyright / Digital Rights?

[jdr999]

Hi all,

When your company is paid to design for a customer, who owns the rights to said design? Are you allowing them to incorporate your design into other documents or websites, or do you retain the copyright and digital files? Is there an extra charge beyond the hourly design rate for full rights?

As an example our graphic designer designs a business card for a customer who is billed at the hourly graphic design rate. They love the design and want the digital files to use elsewhere. Did they pay for a business card or for full rights to the design to use as they wish?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[dabob]

Did you charge them for the design or just the business cards . . . if you design a logo for a company it's pretty much theirs to do with what they will . . . and our opinion is that if you refuse to release them you will have burned that bridge forever - but if you give them a logo that may not scale well i.e. a 600 or 800 dpi tiff version instead of the .ai version they will think you have given them what they need and be happy . . . . and seriously what are you going to do with that art . . . the only person/company that would use it now doesn't talk to you any more.

 

[jdr999]

I hear you.

I'm more wondering what's standard practice is so I'm not giving away, or undercharging for our work as logo designs usually cost more than $50...

In the example above the customer wants business cards and has nothing. We charge 30 minutes design time and printing. If they want to use or modify that design as a logo or corporate identity in letterhead, brochures, websites, etc. should full rights be included with that 30 minute design charge or should that be an additional charge?

And as you mention, there are various options we can supply them with. One is the full AI vector files, another is a business card sized jpg.

But in the end all I want are very happy customers, and to not undercharge or give away all of our hard work... :-D

 

[dabob]

I can't address "under charging" if your happy with your hourly rate and the 30 minutes design time then IMHO your not undercharging if they want to modify your design I would think they would pay for the time spent adjusting it to their specs. But also note that you have said that your are charging for the design . . . that means that they are buying the design . .. that makes it theirs, IMO . . . i.e. they paid you to make the design and to print their business cards . . . that makes them both theirs.

 

[pippip]

I can't address "under charging" if your happy with your hourly rate and the 30 minutes design time then IMHO your not undercharging if they want to modify your design I would think they would pay for the time spent adjusting it to their specs. But also note that you have said that your are charging for the design . . . that means that they are buying the design . .. that makes it theirs, IMO . . . i.e. they paid you to make the design and to print their business cards . . . that makes them both theirs.

Thats the key thing, did they pay you to create a design or for the design. In graphic design studios the standard practice is the files remain the property of the designer. And if needed the client pays a fee for said files. Now this is made easy by design studios generally having contracts signed, something that is really overlooked by print house designers.

If you hire a photographer for your wedding they give you the photos but they retain the copyrights. Not many, if any professionals sign the copyright over.

 

[dabob]

Thats the key thing, did they pay you to create a design or for the design. In graphic design studios the standard practice is the files remain the property of the designer. And if needed the client pays a fee for said files. Now this is made easy by design studios generally having contracts signed, something that is really overlooked by print house designers.

If you hire a photographer for your wedding they give you the photos but they retain the copyrights. Not many, if any professionals sign the copyright over.

If you hire a photographer for your wedding you hire them to take the photos not for the rights to use them same with senior photos at high school I don't necessarily agree with that but thats copyright law but the customer hired you to design "their" logo . . . imo it is their logo . . . and if you want to get in a pissin match over it . . you will be the one losing the business and someone else will just recreate it . . . especially if it only took you 30 minutes to create it. I could probably duplicate it in 10 to 15 minutes . . all you thinking is already done.

Now you get into copyright enforcement . . .what do lawyers cost these days?????

Face it you will be fighting a losing battle . . . and spending thousands to retain rights to a $100 piece of digital artwork and the customer will tell people about what a "wonderful" business you run. LOSE LOSE for everybody

In a similar case - where we actually won kinda - back in the service bureau days we had a client that was a record label and they had staff artist creating the files and then sending them to us to run film and proofs. We did that for several years and as a matter of normal business for us we backed up their files - we did not have an agreement with them for archiving files for them.

They opted to move to Southern California and terminate our business relationship .. . ok that happens, but this is where it gets interesting after about 6-8 months they give us a call . . . can you help us - our server crashed and we lost all of our files . . . do you have any? Well the answer was yes we do - a couple of hundred of your jobs . . . we will dig them out of "our" archives and arrange to get them to you . . . how does $8,000.00 sound to you. (take note that we had all ready written off ever seeing this customer again) they sputtered and spat . . . and hung up on me.

Two days later - they call back and ask . .. how soon can you get them to us . .. they did the math and to recreate the files would have been 10 or 20 times what we were asking. But like I said that bridge had been burned a long time ago.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

We just charge our normal rate and we such a good job that most customers never want to leave us. In the off chance they want the files, we give them to them free of charge. If they want them downloaded onto a CD or flash drive, we charge them for the medium, but not for the service.

 

[dabob]

you could google copyright issues in google . . .

https://www.google.com/#q=if+someone+hires+you+to+design+a+logo+who+owns+the+artwork

 

[jdr999]

Thats the key thing, did they pay you to create a design or for the design. In graphic design studios the standard practice is the files remain the property of the designer. And if needed the client pays a fee for said files. Now this is made easy by design studios generally having contracts signed, something that is really overlooked by print house designers.

If you hire a photographer for your wedding they give you the photos but they retain the copyrights. Not many, if any professionals sign the copyright over.

This is more of what I was asking. My graphic designer feels that if a customer pays us to design a card for them, they do not have the full rights to his digital files to use anywhere they wish. He tells me that is something we should be charging extra for. Thoughts?

I am curious as this seems customary in other professions..

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

This is more of what I was asking. My graphic designer feels that if a customer pays us to design a card for them, they do not have the full rights to his digital files to use anywhere they wish. He tells me that is something we should be charging extra for. Thoughts?

I am curious as this seems customary in other professions..

Your graphic designer may be wrong in this case. I think that it will usually only benefit the relationship with the customer if you give them your files. Dabob had a very specific case, to be noted. If there are hundreds of files, and it will require a lot of time to package and transfer them, then you can certainly charge for your time. If you try to charge them to send their logo which they paid for 2 months ago, where it is going to be used it a website, then you will have a bad time and burn the bridge very quickly. Customer service is key.

 

[Danny Whitehead]

Strictly speaking, your designer is right. Legally, content is the property of the creator (your company) unless you have explicitly agreed otherwise. Such an agreement rarely happens when you're an in-house designer in a small print company, but clients will falsely assume ownership, so in reality, you have to decide on a case-by-case basis. Two obvious examples at either end of the spectrum:

A) They want a vector logo to have a sign made, or some other service you don't provide. It would be pretty counterproductive to refuse.

B) They're asking for a packaged InDesign of last year's brochure file so they can give it to a printer who's undercut you with a price based on editable artwork being supplied. Fat chance.

 

[dabob]

Like I said before you could be right (I never asked a Lawyer specifically before) but If you dig your heels in and refuse to release the artwork I can pretty much promise you that customer will never darken your door again, neither will his friends, his families friends, or any of the people he can find on the street. He might be so angry that your yelp, google, and other review sites will have a few nasty 0 star reviews for your company. So you would win the battle but you would definitely lose the war.

I've been doing this since 1969 and since then we have consistently released art work sometimes because the company discovers there is a printer in their extended family or simply because one moves in to one of the spaces in their building. We release the art every time and say hope you like your new vendor, remember we will be here when you need us . . . they probably come back to us 30 -40 percent of the time after the sweet taste of a lower price is found lacking in customer service or quality and they will stay with you forever.

People talk about marketing your company . . . this is one way to accomplish that . . but this is negative marketing - you will lose market share and seriously how much money did you expect to make from that ownership rights issue. I don't think it makes up for the bad rap your going to get . . . . go the way you want but do it expecting the customer to walk.

 

[pippip]

One thing to be aware of is when releasing files you shouldn't legally be sending fonts. They are licenced to you and not to the customer.
Its a cheat shot you can use if you think you can hold onto the job.

 

[WI-Flexo]

I feel like I should chime in here as I have many years experience dealing with this exact scenario and my take may help you decide the right way for you. I have taken a very similar approach with side work and shop work. Now I am not a lawyer and I don’t really care what is technically legal (even though I have a pretty good handle on copyright law). What I really want is for my client to be happy with the work provided and for myself to feel adequately compensated. So for any design that includes a logo build or some sort of branding look that I create I automatically build that into the job. I break it out so the client can see exactly what I am charging for. When the job is finished the client is given a basic “brand identity” layout with the vector logo, colors used, name of fonts used (outlined in file) etc. This way they get a fancy brand identity file with a bunch of file formats and they feel they got their extra moneys worth. And I feel compensated and they can send that logo to any vendor they want. Now I hope to keep most of their jobs but there will always be ones I cannot do or don’t want and then of course I want them to have their logo files to send.

 

[dabob]

One thing to be aware of is when releasing files you shouldn't legally be sending fonts. They are licenced to you and not to the customer.
Its a cheat shot you can use if you think you can hold onto the job.

Outline the fonts . . . for a logo thats easy . . . but for a brochure, book, etc . .. well they will just have to buy them for themselves.

 

[TLPSfremantle]

Yeah our rule of thumb is, if we design a logo, they get a non editable version (outlined fonts etc) if we design a business card, it's our artwork unless they pay a release fee. The individual elements may have been theirs (logo, colour swatch etc) but it's our designers that mixed the ingredients. .

our standard release fee is $35, but they still dont get an editable version, as above fonts are always outlined. . .

 

[humodys73]

I didn't stumble upon such questions, sorry

 

[keith1]

Most of my clients are happy with a PDF version. If they want more, I don't quarrel. In the overall scheme, it isn't worth it. If they aren't happy with your service they'll end up elsewhere regardless. And bad news travels faster than good.
I've requested native files from designers many times. Some oblige, others don't. I have no interest in stealing their client. However their client has come to me for press work that the designer was unable to provide. Most times (with experienced designers) we can work together. If not, well the designer has lost a client through their own doing/distrust.