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Copyright Issue
I recently quoted a pharmacist to do some signs and a van. I sent out layouts and have had a deposit of £100 paid.
I was asked to go ahead with a couple of the signs but was advised that he was going to get some one else to do the van as he knew someone that would do it for “cash on the side”. Whilst I was a bit irked by this I thought to myself at least I have the other signs to do and I can’t really complain if he was given a better price elsewhere to do the van (as long as my design was not being copied).
Low and behold – I saw the van today!!.
The layout was entirely my design – this is not based on a letter head or any existing signage. I believe my copyright has been infringed here.
So far I have the £100 deposit and have still to manufacture the signs I have been asked to go ahead with.
What do you think. Should I just ignore what has happened and go ahead and supply the signs as agreed or do I take issue about the fact my design has been copied without my permission. What would you do?
The layout on the left is my original design – on the right are the photos I took this morning.
Sorry Rob for posting this in the wrong forum, but I wanted to include a picture of my original design and photos of the way it was done.
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28 Replies
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What feckin liberty!
Guess it goes with the territory we are all in, imagine there is not a leg to stand on here and it will come down to charm, wit and guilt trip you can place on client.
If i had not offered a price as yet for the other signage i would lose it in the next order.
If i had i would let him know that he owed me £35 for my design.
Bl**dy customers
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Hi Phill
I would charge him for the design. Charge him for the time spent and your expertise in designing which must work out to more than £35.00
I would believe that you would hold the copyright on the design and as you had not sold it to him, it’s not his to use. (In saying that the finished van looks bad, in my opinion. Some of the lettering seems to be out of proportion.)
The only problem I can see is that your customer will say that because some of the lettering is in different places, it’s not your design.
I’d still charge him for it. Do you have anything in your T&C’s about your designs etc and copyright?
This happened to us a few months ago. Did the lot. The design, the colours, the business cards etc, customer went to another sign maker who could do a Hi Top LWB van & a small Escort size van for about£150.00 I have seen the finished vans and I will not even own up to designing them. They are that bad.
Good luck in what ever action you take.
Regards
Lee -
I would charge him a design fee! …. even if they have changed the lettering ever so slightly, which in my opinion isnt changed enough to not count as copying your design!!
😀
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I have an Epson printer which gives me the choice of putting a ‘watermark’ in the centre of the page. You can put wording in here, eg. ‘Copyright The Sign Shop’ or whatever.
Whilst this will not stop the Cowboy-types, it will stop the more ethical of us using other peoples designs (this may be where I live in cloud cuckoo land, of course) -
i too, now at least, embed text into a captured image that i might send to a customer. purely in the hope that others will respect my design as i would theirs.
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I honestly understand your frustration Phill, but personally I would let that one go. They have copied your layout (albeit they haven’t made a very nice job of it) but it’s fairly standard stuff. On a scale of annoyance I would put this one at the bottom.
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na na na ……your in the right here phil…..id be totally p****d off if this happened to me as well ..as it has in the passed .In the real corperate world theyed be hammered for thousands
Brian
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what i dont understand is that it would probably been cheaper to have you do it with a invoice and take all the tax deductions plus if you Had done it as your drawing it would have been a better job
chris
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I would let it go if you are getting other sign work from the customer but I would definitely charge for the design. Why take the design fee from the deposit and get an additional deposit for the rest of the work. Any future proofs should have copyright verbage and be signed by the customer.
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Trouble I see is he has used differnt fonts from the original plus a little different placing (poor), so the only same design is the green cross, did you design this? The rest is layout (fonts) and not copyrighted.
This happened to me too but there was more artwork involved, it was easier to let it go than fight it unfortunately. (You know who you are 👿 )
I would still phone him up and say there will be a design fee for the layout
Dave
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while I`m with you on this one phil.
what can you do! Shell out a load of money trying to get £100 back.
I know its the princible, I`ve been there. Went to see a lawyer. He said how much money have you lost, because of what they did. I mentioned the princible thing, and he laughed. Ok give me £500 and I`ll get you £100 back, was his reply.
I would have mentioned something about the design when the customer said about the van. or offered to do it for cash, and just put it through the books as normal.
I`ve done “cash” jobs, then done an invoice and booked the job as normal……..
Just look at ebay, cd`s are copied all the time. Brians outline/grtaphics 2 go, cd being one of them. You`ve got to ask the question why hasn`t he done anything about it……….I would say thats more copy right abuse.
large copywrighted across the design next time. Along with a warning about court proceedings to the infringer.
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Thanks for the feed back everyone.
I’m as annoyed at the person copying as I am with the customer – if I new who it was I would report him to the tax office if he is doing work for cash and not declaring it as earned income.
Next time I see the customer I’ll ask if he knows any pharmacists that do prescriptions “on the side for cash” as I don’t like having to pay the going rate for any prescriptions my family have to buy 😕
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At your age Phill, arnt prescriptions free? 😉
Peter
Seriously though, I do similar stuff for a chemist down here, The cross is the standard sign for a chemist, words are not copyright, so you dont really have a case, just let it go, and tell the client you are to busy to do anything for him for the next 2 years.
Peter -
hi phil 😀
i agree with andy…let it go as they really have…. made a rotten job of it 😮 but it is rather annoying at the same time 😕
nik
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Phill,
I am missing something or are you £100.00 in front 🙄 or have you given the deposit back?Lynn
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Phill:
quote :Next time I see the customer I’ll ask if he knows any pharmacists that do prescriptions “on the side for cash” as I don’t like having to pay the going rate for any prescriptions my family have to buy:lol1:
I think you’ll have to let this go. Its not worth the hassle for you and Allison.
Think about it the customer has ended up with a naff job compared to your design (which is cool by the way)
Its his loss
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yes, there is a number of issues here, I am no Copyright expert but can see this.
£100 deposit paid for the signs, artwork and van. This I suspect was invoiced detailing the job.
You allready have more work to do for them, this is tricky as you would accepting the problem.
Design copyright, does look like the other sign-writer did use your layout as a template to create their own, all designs are copyright of the designer (your team) but consider this, if I was given the job to do I would also put that cross and the text “Deans” and “phamarcy” in exactly the same place, also the rest of the layout seems to match your positioning. But that could have been a fluke. The other thing, I have seen that Cross before in Pharamcy logos, so it is not your design and cross is possibly the logo of “Pharamcy Corp” or something. Just happens to have your words next to it.
Tread carefully Phill.. yes, I would angry but I would have stopped before money was exchanged. As far as anyone would tell, you have received a deposit towards the work carried out and an invoice would reflect a transaction, however deposits are refundable but “part payments” are not.
Its all down to wording and terms and conditions of sale. If your proof had some form of Copyright notice then a breach of reproduction could have occured. -
Dave , I beg to differ.
deposits are not refundable, they are an indication that a contract has been entered into. Just pointed this out in another post.
Once a contract has been agreed, both parties must adhere to the terms.
If they dont, the deposit belongs to the one who didnt break the rules.
Peter -
a deposit is a transfer of money, a bank is a place I deposit money, nothing else. Terms and Conditions are defined in either a “purchase order”, “Pro-forma invoice” or “invoice”, thats the legal document that should have some indication on how the transaction should work. Thats why it is important to have a good T&C when trading when it goes wrong. Verbal terms are again accepted in courts, but one vs one is a pain and is difficult to prove what should be going on between supplier & client.
A deposit is usually used to see the creditworthness of a client, usually followed by a receipt of money to create a recognised transaction. I am going on a bit now… i best shut up! too tired.
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Go to bed dave 😉
@the end of the day t&c cost time and money to enforce. unless you are talking loads a dosh, my word is my bond, i stick to it, if others dont tuff, even if you have it in writing on the back of your invoice etc, without the words ” I have read and understood fully the above terms” and it is signed and witnessed, its not worth a carrott, to enforce you have to go to court, and then its down to who the magistrate, or in the major cases, jury believe is in the right.
Peter -
hi phill
I know how frustrating that is. City council asked for a design for four large exterior signs. I made a whole study with exact measurements, made a design and a detailed quote…
They’ve put out a public tender completely based on my quote with all technical details. I’ve lost the job to another firm. Ok, sh*t happens…
Three months later the signs were erected with exactly my first design…
I’ve sent them a small invoice for designwork (50,00 EUR) and I received a letter from them two weeks later. You couldn’t really speak of a design was there explanation (:) why did they use it??? If I wanted I could go to a lawyer (chat.) …
Really p*sses me off 👿 👿 👿 You pay them al those taxes and then they treat you like dirt… 👿 👿 👿 -
Now that’s what I call outrageous (hot)
I’m fuming even now – that is so low down it is unbelievable (hot)Sorry to hear of your horrid dealings with this scum
What Council is this?
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What I would do is manufacture the signs then tell the customer that things took a little longer than you expected and cost a little more for materials and just put a little more onto the final invoice for the signage so recouping some of the cost for the design work you originally did. That way there is no hard feeling and you have recovered some of the money you feel you are owed for the design work. Sneaky I know but I do think you would be justified in this case.
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as JEM says, or say the price of the VAN and the Main sign was considered cheaper as a double order. etc.
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john,
City of Oudenaarde, beautiful town but…
OK enough complained…
time to cheer up… its almost WEEKEND!!! 😀 😀 😀 -
Bart
Good to see you can ‘move on’ which is what you have to do in order for it not to get to youOurdenaarde!
Scene of a famous battle under the Duke of Marlborough (1708) nearly 300 years ago -
Forget the copyright bit – as Pete says not really economical enforceable anyway for this amount.
But you did quote and he accepted for van and signs – that was the contract he entered in to. No doubt you priced up for whole of the job on that basis, possibly discounted because of the “volume or size”.
Charge him for all of the work as quoted – take off the materials for the van that were not used and make a price adjustment for the reduced volume on his final bill.
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Pete and Dave – re the word deposit – I reckon don’t use it at all – as you have exampled in your posts – its ambiguous. Offer credit terms of 50% with order and 50% prior to installation.
Pete is that right about the signature and witness to t&c’s?
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