Hi,

 

I recently designed a low cost site for a client. All finished I think it looks pretty good. Anyway today he asks for the PSD files for the site as apparantly his flash designer wants therm.

 

Now normally I would tell him to take a running jump at this point but he paid for the site design via credit card and I'm concerned that whichever way I play this he could issue a chargeback on his card so he's got the code and the layered designs without paying. Legal action is a no-go on this if that happened as he's over in the USA.

 

Anyone got any thoughts/opinions?

 

Thanks

Who said you designed it in Photoshop? Send him the file from some obscure program, i dunno, Serif PhotoPlus, Xara3D, etc that cant be easily opened.

Who said you designed it in Photoshop? Send him the file from some obscure program, i dunno, Serif PhotoPlus, Xara3D, etc that cant be easily opened.

 

 

I didnt as it happens - I used fireworks but thats not really overly obscure!!!

Be honest with him?

 

Ask him more specifically what he wants the designs for. Explain to him that by law he has no right to the design as unless you both sign a contract stating otherwise all the intellectual property belongs to you and that he only has permission to use them in the ways which you have provided them.

 

Explain that you are willing to work it out with him, if you are, but there's no point trying to get out of it by doing something dodgy, just explain the way web design works legally. I have all the IP laws written down on some fact sheet somewhere that I can dig out if you want?

Be honest with him?

 

Ask him more specifically what he wants the designs for. Explain to him that by law he has no right to the design as unless you both sign a contract stating otherwise all the intellectual property belongs to you and that he only has permission to use them in the ways which you have provided them.

 

Explain that you are willing to work it out with him, if you are, but there's no point trying to get out of it by doing something dodgy, just explain the way web design works legally. I have all the IP laws written down on some fact sheet somewhere that I can dig out if you want?

 

Any documentation like that would be great. Its funny, been in this business 6 years but all of a sudden I feel the need to be a little bit more thorough paperwork wise!!

Interesting point. Maybe charge him extra or say you can do the flash (if you can).

 

I'd be worried if the site hasn't been coded yet and they're just trying to get the design for free.

 

Maybe just say you work with physical paper/pencil for design and then work "on site" sort of thing.

Yeah I'd just say I didn't do it as one file, I created the layout in my wysiwig or whatever, and then create the images to fill it in. No PSD to give

The key place to go for info is http://www.weblaw.co.uk they are the UK's leading specialists.

 

However, they are typical lawyers

 

They do have some useful info on their website, but I can't find the document that I saved so I have added it here.

 

Please note, this is just a document I downloaded years ago from the Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP weblaw site, speak to them for proper, up-to-date advice!

 

However, if you go to the weblaw.co.uk website, and click on "Intellectual Property Guidelines" then download that PDF and look at point 2b it reads:

"In English law, if there is no specific provision relating to IP, the the entity creating the work in question will, for copyright purposes, be the author and therefore the owner of the copyright."

 

For all intents and purposes, you own anything you create unless contracted otherwise. Their payment to you is a kind of rough contract licensing the design for use on their website but they don't in anyway own your designs.

 

I would explain to them that you don't have a PSD to give them, and that you cannot release your original designs to them as this is not part of the services offered? They own the website, you own the designs, that's the way the web cookie crumbles!!

 

Websites_and_Intellectual_Property_Rights.doc

I don't get this.

 

What will you do with the designs, put them in a glass frame and say look what I did?

 

Or would it be good to ask them for a design fee X to release the design work. I know there's a pride aspect but I don't understand why people are against it.

 

Of course the customer would argue that they'd already paid for the work so what's the problem. So then you could say it was created by our Professional Design Team and for use in other circumstances, apart from the website we built, it has this cost X.

 

At least give them an option to pay you some fair money.

I don't get this.

 

What will you do with the designs, put them in a glass frame and say look what I did?

 

Or would it be good to ask them for a design fee X to release the design work. I know there's a pride aspect but I don't understand why people are against it.

Most designers have a style of design which is their intellectual property. If you start releasing designs to the client as their intellectual property you get into murky waters as to who that "style" of design belongs to. The IP law in the UK is set up to protect designers. We all own our designs, they are our ideas. The client gets permission to use them, but not to claim them as their own or to stop us from using our style of design with another client.

 

Of course the customer would argue that they'd already paid for the work so what's the problem. So then you could say it was created by our Professional Design Team and for use in other circumstances, apart from the website we built, it has this cost X.

What the customer has paid for is a usable website and the permission to use the site for the purposes stated.

 

At least give them an option to pay you some fair money.

This is definitely an option, but you have to be very careful with the purpose that you release the design for, i.e. you permit them to modify it for their purposes but they still don't own the IP.

Most designers have a style of design which is their intellectual property. If you start releasing designs to the client as their intellectual property you get into murky waters as to who that "style" of design belongs to. The IP law in the UK is set up to protect designers. We all own our designs, they are our ideas. The client gets permission to use them, but not to claim them as their own or to stop us from using our style of design with another client.

 

 

What the customer has paid for is a usable website and the permission to use the site for the purposes stated.

 

 

This is definitely an option, but you have to be very careful with the purpose that you release the design for, i.e. you permit them to modify it for their purposes but they still don't own the IP.

 

Ah haaa .. now I'm understanding.

 

From our perspective as a web development company none of our designs / templates are re-used. Some people have asked us to have a similar site but changing the colours and logo. We've point blank refused. Every site we do is unique.

 

Of course our prices are suitable for client exclusivity and I know from various people that when you get into arguing with a customer in to who owns what .. trust is at stake.

 

That is why we factor it in - they can have the complete package. Maybe it's just us but we factor things like this in and then if client decides it's not within his budget then we take things like that out. This communicates an understanding that everything we do has a price - and is fair.

I use a modified version of this

 

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standard-agreement

 

The bit you'll be interested in is the sub section about I.P Law.

i usually give the PSD after the payment without any questions..

In every contract, I have a £95 for web PSD, £200 for the .FLA - when they sign, they know if they want it, its not being given for free.

Picking up on the chargeback point. From experience US banks and credit card companies are very lenient when it comes to issuing chargebacks on the behalf of their customers. Amex is the worst for chargebacks.

 

If you have concerns about your clients actions I suggest you follow your gut reaction and tell your client that the site was not created in a vector format and would be of little use to the Flash designer.

I recently designed a low cost site for a client. All finished I think it looks pretty good. Anyway today he asks for the PSD files for the site as apparantly his flash designer wants therm.

 

I would say this , whatever happens it sounds like he will give something to his flash designer, so if your afraid of losing the money just give him a PSD or whatever and play the helpful webdesigner. If you dont , like you said you might lose the money, or even worse lose a future client or recomendation, not a good thing.

A very difficult one to say the least, maybe in the future you should follow Acuitys policy!!

Give him a .pdf

you could always ask to deal directly with the flash guy and give him only what he needs - he may only need colour codes, fonts or other basic design elements which you can provide very easily