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From: Mark Sienkiewicz (no email)
Date: Thu Aug 19 1999 - 01:29:27 EDT
>|:-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.
>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
There is one thing I've noticed missing from the whole discussion.
That is the concept of a "work for hire".
A work for hire exists when you are paid to create intellectual
property. The typical case is when you're formally an employee.
For example, I write software all day, but I don't own the copy
rights - my employer does.
So the whole question revolves around the terms of the deal. Was
the contract that the intellctual property in the logo belongs to
the artist, or was it a work for hire?
You could argue about that for a long time, which is why it helps
to write it down. For example, my employment contract explicitly
states that the software I write for my job belongs to the employer.
That would have been the case even if the contract didn't specify
it, but spelling it out means there is less room for somebody to say
"that wasn't what I meant".
Of course, there seems to be a cultural fear of contracts. At the
closing on my boat, I was presented with many pages of contracts
that I had not seen before. The settlement agent was quite disturbed
that I was actually going to READ it all.
People expect you to just sign without reading it, even though the
line right above the signature says "I declare that I have read
and understand this document". My wife's part in any signing
ceremony always involves saying "Don't worry, he always reads all
the paperwork".
With that kind of attitude among people who do contracts every day
for a living, I hardly find it surprising that people neglect to
write contracts for transactions smaller than buying a house or a
boat.
That's why calling it "An Understanding" or something is useful.
You can even introduce it as "This is just to make sure we're
both thinking the same thing and to help us remember what we
agreed to later".
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