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views on Artwork ownership?
Long story – short.
We trialed a few graphic designers with varying skills on a ‘show us what you can do…if we like it you’re hired’ basis with a view to offering the a part-time job.
None of them really worked out long term and nobody was paid for the trial, but we did retain the artwork they produced and one of our guys has since incorporated an element of it into the customer’s artwork. (Overall it was pretty dire but had one nice piece.)
The lad that was a bit of a prima-donna / diva that couldn’t accept that he wasn’t what we were after has been on demanding payment at 4x what a wage would have been…we think chancer.
Therein lies the controversy: was he ‘freelance’ showing us his wares, or ‘working unpaid to demonstrate his skills’?
I’ve yet to establish if the work he supplied was in itself derived / clipart based or actually HIS original artwork…
Thoughts?
Dave
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6 Replies
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I’m fairly sure that it’s yours.
If any of our staff design work for us, it belongs to the company not the designers.
also you had a verbal contract he was ’employed’ for that period unpaid. You say freelance but was he solely working for you? On your premises? In the eyes of HMRC etc he’s an employee (albeit unpaid)
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Devils advocate here – "copyright remains the property of the originator unless there is an agreement in place to transfer ownership somewhere else".
But probably not an issue unless he’s prepared to make a claim against you for breach of copyright?
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Hmm. both sides have valid claims depending on the EXACT arrangement agreed to..and I wasn’t party to that conversation although the implication was ‘do some ‘samples’ for a REAL client brief’ – non-paid to verify your skills.
S’pose I could insist that we pay him by cheque made out to ‘his company’ (that he doesn’t have) as if we pay individuals that would imply he was EMPLOYED by us…and therefore working for nowt as he’d agreed.
Dave
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I think you are on dodgy ground as you have used his work "but we did retain the artwork they produced and one of our guys has since incorporated an element of it into the customer’s artwork. (Overall it was pretty dire but had one nice piece.) "
I would remove the plagarised work and you will have nothing to worry about. There are a whole host of issues here, if he did take this element from elsewhere you may well be using copyrighted artwork anyway, he still retains ownership as you invited him in to undertake a ‘test’ which was unspecific and relied on the production of his own work.
I believe that if he chooses to pursue it then he will win. To be awkward and issue it to his ‘company’ would only inflame the situation.
Personally, as I have stated above I would remove any link to this work and produce your own original artwork.
Good luck but not worth the hassle.
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Going to ‘negotiate’ on Monday…
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Good luck
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