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From: Rick Kennerly (no email)
Date: Fri Aug 13 1999 - 16:01:29 EDT
-snip-
|:-Needless to say our
|:-friends were outraged that this so called artist was unethical enough to
|:-take their money and then share the logo freely with his friends.
-snip-
Nothing unethical about it really. This kind of misunderstanding happens
frequently when novices get involved with intellectual property rights law.
For instance, substitute writer for graphics artist. I've written an
occasional magazine article and so I have to negotiate what rights I'm
selling (First North American Serial Rights, usually) and what rights I
reserve (all others). If a publication wants exclusive rights to the
article, then they have to negotiate more money for the article (or a
guarantee of more work for the writer or something).
Mostly magazines pay to use the article once and then the writer can do with
it what she wants--even give it away, as happened in the case of the boat
design. Even if a magazine commissions the work, if I've retained the
rights to my original thought, then just because I've sold it once doesn't
mean I can't sell it again (think of all the SAIL magazine articles written
by Lin & Larry Pardey that later end up as chapters in their books. In
fact, if you read widely, it's not uncommon to come across the same article
repeated in a different publication maybe months apart and catering to
different subscriber bases).
So, graphic artists are governed by and protected by the same laws as
writers and other people who create original work. Turn the tables for a
minute. What if your friends had decided to go into business mass producing
the graphic that the artist was only paid once to produce? Obviously, the
artist would want more money than if he were doing a one-off.
If your friends had wanted to commission exclusive rights to the design,
they should have asked for them (and at that price the artist should have
been glad to sign them over--I must be in the wrong business). Still this
is one of those ignorance of the law is no excuse situations. Intellectual
property rights are very strong in the US, as many employers have found out.
Just because a [name it] was created on your dime doesn't mean that you own
exclusive rights to it unless you've got a contract with the
artist/engineer/researcher/professor assigning those rights to "the
company".
How often we recall, with regret,
that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor
and missed him and killed a publisher.
But we remember, with charity,
that his intentions were good.
--Mark Twain
Rick - nh2f
Westsail 32 Xapic
Annapolis, MD
A small boat & a suitcase full of money
beats a 40 footer tied to the Bank
Westsail Home: http://www.erols.com/woax
Xapic's Home: http://www.abs.net/~nh2f
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