[glittergal]

Hi Guys,

Looking for some help.

I was today informed by one of my clients that they are employing a new webdesigner to redesign their website.

They were my first ever client and are a large theatrical agency, I expected this as a new guys has joined the team and seems to want things changed around.

Anyway, our current contract ends in February and we are currently having an issue as to who has the right to what.

For example, for this site they sent me original showreels, cvs and pictures. I then formatted these, cropped, coloured, edited, resized, retabbed etc and made them user friendly for the website.

In my opinion they should not be able to download that stuff and use it on the new site with no credit to me as it is work I have produced.

Am I wrong?

If they put the formatted cvs, cropped pictures and encoded videos on their new site is that not stealing my work.

As it was my first client there is no clause in the contract about termination or who owns what. But I really don't think they have the right to redistribute the media I created for them. Isn't that under my design copywrite?

Help - not sure where I stand or what to say.

[MikeChipshop]

Unfortunately, due to it never being laid out in the contract, you don't really have any hard evidence to back up any claims to ownership of the material.

Even if a contract was put in place, there is no way i would try to claim CV formatting, cropped images etc as mine. These are assets that belong to the company and you have carried out work for them which you have been paid for.

My contract clearly states that,

Quote

any assets belonging to the company, be they edited or not, remain property of said company unless explicit permission has requested and granted for assets to remain in control of Miniman Web Design

Obviously it depends on what media you're referring to but the things you've listed above i would count as belonging to the client so long as they paid your fee for your service.

This post has been edited by MikeChipshop: 02 December 2011 - 04:58 PM

[glittergal]

Thanks for the reply.

Doesn't that mean though they essentially they could use my whole design, including media and another company passes it off as theres? That doesn't seem legit when I've created everything.

[MikeChipshop]

You have the option to maintain a certain amount of intellectual property as your own (or as your companies). However when creating branding and design work for someone, the finished product generally belongs to them (and really should do too). I can point you to dozens of sites i have done in the past that look pretty much the same now but have been refreshed by another company.

The thing is you provide a service and once that service has been completed, you really don't have any reason to hold on to the rights of the assets. In some cases you may licence out certain aspects such as an application that you created and use for several different customers but in the case of design things are are far more bespoke.

In my contract though, i do have a clause that gives me the right to own and use all my work in a way as to self publicise and that no other company is allowed to claim they created these works.

[rallport]

glittergal, on 02 December 2011 - 04:48 PM, said:

If they put the formatted cvs, cropped pictures and encoded videos on their new site is that not stealing my work.

Did you personally write the CVs, take the photograph and film the videos yourself?

If you didn't then you have no ground to stand upon. The client can rightly, tell you to get lost unfortunately.

[roothost]

rallport, on 02 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

Did you personally write the CVs, take the photograph and film the videos yourself?

If you didn't then you have no ground to stand upon. The client can rightly, tell you to get lost unfortunately.

Furthermore, even if you did write the CV's, take the photographs and film the videos, you did so under contract to said company and were paid to do so. That would be, unless stated by you and agreed by both parties, where your relationship with said material ends.