You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions
Kris says:
Hi,
I have a small company and I hired a freelance graphic designer to create logo, artwork and other items for my company. I paid her fully for the work she has done. There was no written contract. I have now hired a full time graphic designer and I have asked the freelance graphic designer to give me the original artwork so that I can have the in house graphic designer use it. She refused to turn over the original files (7 years worth of work for which she was paid very well). A few days later she called me and said she would turn over the files for a fee (substantial I might add). I told her that the logo’s belonged to my company and she was already paid for her work. Do I have any legal rights to obtain these from her?
Thanks,
Kris
Dear Kris,
Unfortunately, no. This is a misconception many hiring parties fall victim to—I paid for it, I own it. In the case of copyrightable work, this is not true. The creator of artwork, in this case, a logo, owns the copyright in it unless and until she transfers it in writing. What you paid for was the right to use the artwork as your logo, but not for the copyright. To obtain those rights, you have to have a document which makes it either work for hire or which transfers all right, title and interest in the work. The files belong to her because you did not have a written agreement that says otherwise. My advice is to negotiate a price for the digital files and a full transfer of rights and chalk it up to an expensive lesson learned.
Best,
Jean
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Stephen says:
Hi Jean,
Thanks for keeping such a great resource up to date! My question relates to work I did for a client in late ‘05-’07. During this time I performed a number of strategic and creative (i.e. product naming and initial logo mocks which were communicated to client via email). Since, the relationship has gone sour. The former client filed federal trademark registration a week after our name suggestion and it is currently published for opposition for the past year (another brand is opposing). The product has just launched. My question is, does my firm own the copyright or common law trademark to the name? What legal rights does that give us over the usage of the name, if any?
Thanks,
StephenDear Stephen,
Like the question above, a lot depends on whether you have an agreement with your former client in writing which transfers the rights in what you created to the client. You don’t own any trademark rights in the logo you created. Trademark rights are created from the use of a mark in connection with the sale of goods or services. But, you do own the copyright in the image if there was no transfer in writing to the client.
Best
Jean
I would like to ask a question but I’m not sure if this is the correct spot to put it in or not? Can someone help me out? I have a legal issue regarding copyright that I desperately need answered.
Thank you.
Ask away.
Hi Jean,
I’ll try to keep this from getting too confusing. Wish me luck!
I created and sold design work to company A. Then company A resold it to company B. Now, company B is being purchased by company C. Company C wants to buy the designs that I originally sold to company A. It seems like I still own the rights to the design and am, therefore, entitled to selling them again. Is that correct? No agreement was made with company A to turn over the copyrights.
Thanks for your help,
Phil
You still own the rights to your design, but that may not the end of the story. You sold to Company A a specific set of rights. When a company is sold, usually the buying company buys any rights owned by the selling company. If Company B had the rights to use your design that it bought from Company A, it can sell whatever rights it has to Company C. Company C doesn’t have to buy the same rights again if it bought them from Company B. But, if Company C did not buy those rights from Company B or wants additional rights such as a full buyout of the design or to use the design in a different way than was originally authorized, then you have the right to sell it to them. They key here is what each company bought from the other and whether the usage is the same by all the companies.
Hello,
I have an email from the designer that states that I own copyright to the logo but that they own the right to put the logo in his portfolio of his company website. He operates from outside the US & did send me the original digital files! Does this mean that I can trademark the logo in the US without any issue?
Thanks
Yes.
I am part of a committee- with no legal structure- raising money for local hospital. The committee needed a logo, so one of the members came up with a rough sketch. I took the sketch and reworked it , added text and created several treatments for t-shirts and signs. We have been using the end result for several months. Now, the committee is disbanding and there are several different opinions on what should happen in the future. The question is, who owns the copyright to the logo and/or treatments? The person who did the original sketch only? Do I have some rights to it?
A client went directly to the printer for a reprint of a project I created for them. The printer’s files were lost in a computer crash. The printer is contacting me for the native files. Who owns the files? Can the client request a reprint without first asking the designer’s permission and then negotiating payment. Who should be contacting the designer for the native files?
Hi guys, I also have a question. I have been working in a company for almost 1 year and my job is setting up simple wordpress websites. They trained me on how to do it. And one of the process in creating simple websites is to put/embed an image on the landing page. But we don’t create the images, we just acquire them from google images. Am I or the company violated or going to violate any image copyright if we just get them from the google images?
Hi Jean, I wonder if you can help me? I have been doing my first design job since January this year to present… I am currently employed full time at a start-up food & beverage company. We have an employment contact and everything. My employer has breached contract by failing to pay me for two months. I want to make sure I have the rights to my artwork and stop them from using it. I did some character designs for them, templates are sent off to be produced for packaging. Can I stop them from doing this? Or get some sort of injunction to stop them from using my character designs?
About 7 years ago, I was hired by a marketing company to produce logo design and branding for a new client of theirs. This marketing company no longer does work for that particular client but last year passed my details on to this particular client who was needing some more work done. The work has since been done. I’ve now received a request from the client to supply them with all the native files so that they can go to another agency to have their future work done. Where do i stand? Do I own the rights to the files and can let the client have them for a release fee?
Hi Jean,
I was hired by a struggling Boston non-profilt to redesign and brand a new website. The programmer and the mkt assistant came to them as volunteers. THe internal client was to be responsible for providing content. The agreement was that the project would happen over 12 weeks and I would be compensated by a grant. All went well until it became clear the client couldn’t write or organize content. When the time ended with the project incomplete as the client was six weeks late in delivery- they chose to stall and profess to look for additional funding, while putting the project on hold. Now they’re asking for my design files. I worked onsite 2 days a week as a program manager but put in additional hours as a designer working from home with my own software and computer.
I rec’d an email asking for the live files- they have pdfs- and telling me they plan on buying the software. Do I owe them the files? I might add I donated over 60 hours pro bono to this project as they could only pay me a set stipend.