Copyright

[John Singh]

Hi Dave

I would imagine you would have to be extremely careful in using bits from your previous employer’s artwork.

I would be especially narked if someone was trying to use parts of my designs

But there’s a question I’d like to ask you Dave!

Why have you found it necessary to even go near his artwork???

Surely now as a free agent you have total artistic license to create whatever you wish

You need to create a brand of your own so that you will be distinct from the competition

John

[Robert Lambie]

did your previous employer design the artwork for this customer or just reproduce the original?

if he did.. try come up with something new like john has suggested. 😉 safest route!

[Bill Dewison]

Hi Dave,

If I’m understanding this correctly, you did these designs whilst in his employment, yes? If this is the case, the legal copyright is yours as you automatically get copyright when you create an original piece of work. However, because you will have done these designs for your employer, as I understand it, he/she will now own the license to your designs.

To be on the safe side, you should alter 60% of your original designs before using them. As John says though, it may be even wiser if you create totally new designs. You can loosely base these on the ones you did during your employment, but new designs will give you the stamp you need to say “I’m doing it for myself”

Hope this helps,

Cheers, Dewi

[Martin Pearson]

This is something I would like to know more about as well, I have had customers comming to me to get a second van done and would like it the same as the van they already have. They have not gone to the sign company that did the first van for a number of reasons like poor service poor quality etc. So how do you stand on this?
If the customer already has an image sometimes it is difficult to do anything different, there is only so much you can do if all the customer wants is his name, logo and telephone number on the side of the van.

[Dave Bruce]

thanks for your input guys. The situation is the same as Martin. I have customers coming to me because they know I was the person making the sign or applying the vinyl and get on better with me, and they want another van or sign done the same as the last. I lost the last vehicle ‘copy’ job because the guy didn’t want to change his design (I did 4 vans for him in the last job) and I hadn’t cleared this legal matter up.

For new customers/new businesses this is not a problems, as I will be designing new artwork with my signature.

Thanks
Dave

[John Singh]

Ah now we have a little bit more info on what you are talking about

Lets take this scenario

BT employ Signs Magic to design a corporate logo and strip for their new maintenance vehicles.

Signs Magic produce the layout and BT approve it. BT now employ the services of Signs Magic to do their fleet of vehicles.

A few years roll by and BT now ask for a new quote to do some new motors aquired. Signs Magic put in a hefty price that BT do not like.

BT have the option to look elsewhere for a better quote.
In doing so BT are not expected to now have a different logo and strip because it was originally designed by Signs Magic.

The new company would only be using the corporate identity to furnish the new vehicle with graphics identical with the rest of BT’s fleet.

I am not sure of the legal standing as I am not a legal tech. however quite a lot of issues like this are decided by ‘reasonable’ judgements in the court of law.

The logo and strip now belong to BT

To demonstrate this:

Could Signs Magic who designed the original artwork use the BT logo Whenever they wished?
Wherever they wanted?

I think not

Can BT within reason do the above?

Regards

John

[storeinet]

John

That’s a good post, and I’m no legal head.

BT own the trade mark, this may make a difference, sorry to add another legal problem to the question.

This is one mine field that only a trained brief can answer I think.

Dan

[Rodney Gold]

Any design you did whilst in someones employ , related to the employment, is theirs – if you were commisioned on a frelance basis it would be yours.
It depends on who is breaching copyright as well , ultimately it is not your duty to establish who owns copyright to something you are asked to emulate. You are merely an “instrument” of reproduction and the van owner who is the person using or displaying the copyrighted work
is in breach , sort of like can you sue a photostat machine for making a copy?

[John Singh]

So along with Rodney’s analogy about the Van owner who takes the action to ‘photocopy’ previous work it might then be easier to see that all we are doing, when a company comes to us for the first time and wants his van to be signwritten ‘just like the rest’, is carrying out HIS instructions.

The issue of copyrigt it would appear, as again Rodney points out, is between the source and buyer and not us

John

[Dave Bruce]

Nice one John/Rodney. I do believe that the copywright can be in the hands of the designer or the customer as long as it is stated from the outset. In other words BT could ask Sign Magic to do the design but stipulate that they retain the copywright of anything the designer comes up with. In this situation the designer bumps up the quote to cover the possiblity of them getting the livery carried out elswhere. To keep things clear all sign shops should have on their stationary who the title of copywright belongs to, my x employer has it on the reverse of all invoices sent out.

If BT asks Sign Magic to quote for putting on x,y and z on to their vehicles (and presents them with the logo /txt, idea) then any other sign company can reproduce the same livery, as it was BT’s idea/creation in the first place not SignMagic.

Phew this is hard work at this time of night and year.

Marry Christmas

Dave

[Martin Pearson]

Not quite sure if I fully understand what you mean Dave, that sounds a bit like a customer comming in with a visual and asking if you can do the job cheaper which Im sure is not what you mean.
If this happens to me I wont give the guy a quote but I will offer them a different option, one I have done myself.

[Rodney Gold]

Merry christmas to all , and wishig everyone a really good and prosperous new year.
Yeh Martin , the “can you do this design I asked another company for, who spent their time which I didn’t pay for on , a little cheaper” is a hot chestnut.
I approach this 2 ways , If the askee is a price shopper and has been unethical , I decline politely or offer my own design at my normal price with my normal conditions which are :
NO design or samples will be undertaken untill written confirmation of quotation and should a job NOT arise out of said design/samples then the design will be charged for at normal hourly rates and each sample or revision of sample will be invoiced out at 10x the unit price

If the askee has had the previous co do the job a few times and is being gouged , then I might consider it as I feel that the co that “designed” it has been “paid” and is now holding it’s customer to ransom.
If the askee has artwork in any electronic form , like a Corel drawing etc , than I assume it’s theirs.

If I am commisioned to do something for a customer and get the job and
get paid , then I feel that the copyright , design etc belongs to the customer . I build design fees into the job and would rather retain their business through quality , service and reasonable pricing than any legal process.

This is a very sticky area and what you do here will impact on the image you have with your customers , fellow peers and suppliers – it depends on your business philosophy. Some folk will do anything to save or make a buck.
We design a a ton of stuff , not so much signage but products , and recently I had Promotions agency who asked me to come up with something for a major brewery specificaly for women (but that can also be used by men).
I designed a combination “nail saver” and bottle opener keyring , the nailsaver is for women and it lifts the ring on a can and at the same time pushes the tab down , thus saving women’s nails , men can use the opener section and it also has flat screwdriver thingy built in
The part that savves naile is shaped like a finger , and if you hold the keytag upwards , it looks like you are giving someone the finger too (the breweries LOVED that aspect of it more than anything else- woman power!!)
Anyway , I waited and waited for the expected order of 50 000 of these and found out that my sample , which the promo agency hadn’t paid for , was being touted around all over for the cheapest manufacturing price (I design and manufacture).
I wrote a letter of demand to the promo agency and approached the brewery direct and got the order.
I would NEVER generally do that – approach directly – however in this case this was a unique product that had been touted around , thus destroying this uniqueness and would have been copied (No time to patent/copyright and trying to defend the patent/copyright is a waste of time) so I viewed it as a one shot thing , do the major production run and thats it!! It’s gonna get copied as soon as the consumers get it etc etc .

I will never deal with the promo co again and neither will the breweries as their margin on this item was in the order of 200%+ , so apart from being really unethical , they got super greedy too.

[Dave Bruce]

What I was trying to say Martin waqs that if the customer comes in with their on design like ” I want this text on the side of my van and this picture of a man climbing a ladder beside it” then he/she has come up with the idea so has copywright on it not the sign shop.

Cheers

Dave

[Martin Pearson]

I see what you mean now Dave but not sure I agree with you, after all when I discuss any form of signage for a customer I get as much input from them as I can especially if they dont already have an image, I will ask them about Font styles, colours, specific text they want, images either printed or vinyl so we can try and produce exactly what they want. You could from that say they provided all the info.
If a customer comes in and says I want some text and a picture of a bloke on a ladder you still decide the layout, how big the text should be, how big the bloke on the ladder is, you have also probably scourced the picture as well. You will lay it out on the side of the van to ensure the balance is right etc.
I’m not trying to knit pick here but after you have done that sort of work I would have thought the copyright would be yours.

[Dave Bruce]

Hi Martin hope the day has been good, sitting here bloated and cosy.

The thing is Martin you may lay the text and picture in to the best position, but you have no copywright over the text, font or colour (according to the copywright office) and if you sourced the picture then the same applies. If however you change the font from the original then it become your artwork and yes it gets complicated. The font on the van I was originally talking about had been thickened up (by moving nodes)and possibly straightened.

cheers

Dave

[John Singh]

MMMMMmmmmmmm!

I tried to see if this subject has been touched on already but I couldn’t see anything.

Martin: I can see where you are coming from as far as creating the design and layout is concerned.

I had a chump who came to me saying he has been busy on his computer designing a layout for his van and would like a quote on it please.

‘Sure!’ I said to him, ‘Fax it over for me to have a look at’
Sure enough this was a well thought out design on a vehicle template
It was very evident that this guy was trying to pull a fast one.

What did I say to him?

I told him straight that a Sign Co has taken a lot of time to design this layout for him

Now I can do the same for you but it will have to be a different design and I will need to add that to the cost

I didn’t hear from him after that

Maybe I lost that job but there is the matter of ethics here that I believe all of us should practise and I believe you do.

My conscience simply would not allow me to replicate that design that someone has spent his time on only for me to reap the dividends

However as already said: If a sign company has done a fleet of vans and now the owner of the vehicles wishes to shop around because the original sign guy has pegged his price up ( because he feels he has the monopoly on the design) I believe the vehicle owner has the right to do so and also the right to carry on his corporate image as per the other vehicles.

The question is do we as sign makers believe he has the right to do that or do we feel that he has no alternative but to come to us and therefore we can hold him to ransom

John

[Dave Bruce]

Thanks for the input John. You have hit on another point here, the price! My x employer increased their prices twice last year and by the end of 2002 had got a reputation for being expensive. This has resulted in people going further afield (they are the only full time sign company in this area). I know of one company that we had done a fleet of vans and lorries for, got a Glasgow company (100miles away) to reproduce their livery on two lorries, and it cost them half the price we had quoted! They have said to me that all future lorries will be done by the Glasgow company due to price and they can’t see any difference in the design or quality. This may fit into your last scenario.

This makes for an interesting situation for me, as even if customers are not happy dealing with the x employer, due to attitude and price, I should not offer to replicate their livery, yet if they go to a sign shop far enough away, someone else is going to do the job for them.

Another situation which springs to mind was a van we sketch designed, (normally nothing is done untill the customer accepts the quote) as he wanted to see what kind of thing he was going to get,(and took a copy for the partner to see). He then had the job done at half the price by another company over 100 miles away, the job was very poor quality but was the design we had come up with, bit like your last chump.

I was hoping that someone would have had experience in being involved directly with copywright legislation, not that I would wish such a headache on to anyone, but maybe someone had fallen into the situation unwittingly. 😳

Time for some cold turkey

Take it easy guys.

PS I got a blow pipe to play with for Christmas, its got some deadly looking darts, might be useful for the non payers!
Oh yes, and a scantily dressed Kylie.

[John Singh]

There are some guys on here that focus primarily on fleet signage
One such is Johnchilds
I guess he’s on holiday at the mo’ but I’m sure he might have come up against it.

But isn’t that interesting that so far no one has met up with this
There might be a message there

But sometimes we take this on ourselves
Why not give the load to the others

What I mean is this:

To your client: “Sure I can do your van for you and a lot cheaper than Signs Magic.”

“just one snag!”

“What’s that?” your client asks

“Can’t do your corporate strip because the other sign guy reckons he’s got YOUR design as HIS copyright!”

I don’t know about you but if I were the client………..

John

[John Childs]

No, not on holiday John, I’m still here. Got bored already.

Firstly, I am no expert on copyright law and so my comments here are purely what I think applies.

My opinion is that if the client pays me for design and layout then the result belongs to him and he can do what he likes with it. Nevertheless I will still fight tooth and nail not to give them vector files purely to make life as difficult as possible for any of my competitors who might be trying to steal my clients.

By the same token, if I don’t charge, then the work is mine. However, this can lead to grey areas in the case, for instance, of a fleet of ten vans where although I will probably not make a separate charge, the cost of design has been built in to the van unit price. So we do the ten vans and everybody is happy. What is the position when, six months later, the client wants ten more vans doing? Do I reduce the price? In practice I don’t, so effectively I am being paid for design work twice. Ethical? Probably not, but I can’t help myself.

It would be easy to avoid this situation by simply making an upfront charge for design and then settling for a lower vehicle price but the problem is that my clients don’t want that. They are mainly leasing and contract hire companies who can’t cope with a set-up charge as they have no system in place to charge it to an internal account anywhere. They prefer a single unit price that they can allocate to the expense account of individual vehicles.

Consequently, in my world, the copyright question would seem to apply more to small and intermediate fleets as the big boys pay design and marketing agencies, sometimes ridiculous amounts, for their corporate image. The copyright therefore belongs to the client and he can get who he likes to reproduce it.

I have never come up against any copyright issues but I think that it IS our problem. If we do work where the copyright belongs to one of our competitors then we will receive the writ, regardless of the fact that our prospective client told us to do it. WE would be the ones copying someone else’s work. The fact that one of your friends told you to rob a bank is no defence when you are caught in a branch of Barclay’s in the wee small hours.

The reason that so far no-one has met up with this may be that, regardless of ownership of designs, if one of my clients went somewhere else I personally wouldn’t bother suing their new supplier. If they found someone who could give them better service at a lower price I would just let them go and try to learn something from the experience. It certainly wouldn’t be worth issuing writs and incurring big legal expenses for what, maybe a couple of hundred quidsworth of design work at most.

On the other hand, a prospective client that had me do design work and then hawked it around to knock a few quid off the price is a different matter and I would probably send a solicitor’s letter to the the sign firm that did the work demanding money. I probably wouldn’t take it further than that though for the legal expenses reason. It would just be pure nastiness and to give them something to worry about.

[Bill Dewison]

Sometimes that is the problem John, the legal costs need to be taken into account before pursuing any copyright infringements.

I did some logo designs for a IT company in the US. They contacted me to say that unfortunately I’d failed to come up with something they were happy with and they wouldn’t be using my designs. They then sent me a cheque for 50% of my quote for the logo work, so I was fairly happy and forgot all about it. (Way I saw it, designs get turned down sometimes and you get nothing, 50% was better than 0%) Recently however, I happened on their website and low and behold, there is MY design with some very minor modifications!

The problem is, if I chase them for the other 50% of the design cost, they have the legal resources to wrap me up in paperwork for a month! After that they could easily go to court with me and get away on a technicality, then I’m left with a pretty big legal bill. In this particular case it isn’t worth the hassle to pursue it, better to chock it up to experience.

Like John C. has said, a threatening letter from a solicitor is probably the most economic method of dealing with copyright infringement, but when you consider the amounts of money being charged for design, court action is rarely viable. Worth noting also unless you have Mickey Mouse as your solicitor (make for interesting meetings 😉 ) you can be charged around £90 for sending out that threatening letter! 😕

Cheers, Dewi