Copyright advice / opinion sought

[slim_mcslim]

I am looking for some advice or opinions on the scenario I describe.

 

6 Years ago client commissions me to produce a set of drawings, which we provide, no written agreement between us and client exists, client never pays for drawings, but uses them in publications, we don't mind as we make money and experience good relationship with client. Overtime we fall out with the client, all their original staff move on, but have just reprinted new, differently designed publications containing our drawings, no formal agreement exists between us and the client for them to reproduce the drawings and I have never signed over copyright of the drawings, and I also hold all the original artwork.

 

Where do we stand, can I contact them and ask them to cough up for using our intellectual property/drawings which never became the property of the client in the first place...

 

The drawings in this case relates to a hotel and technical scale plans of their function rooms.

 

 

Any comments ?

 

 

P.

 

Moderation: Title changed to contain better information about the topic.

[dbuckley]

In my opinion you can, as the contract was never completed as they didn't pay, so their rights to have the intellectual property were not established.

 

However, with a lack of evidence as to the exact relationship under which these drawing were produced and handed over, the party to benefit most from this will probably end up being the lawyers.

 

Tread with care....

[kerry davies]

Eventually you would almost certainly have to get a proper legal opinion on this so I cannot give legal advice

 

My own strategy would be to contact them asking what they were going to do about the unauthorised use of your work, in the nicest way possible.

If I were them I'd probably say, we published them six years ago and they are our copyright because we did just that.

 

As you say yourself, there existed an amicable agreement on non-charging when they were first published so to overturn that may well prove difficult if not impossible. The fact that you have the originals means something, but not as much as the fact that they did publish.

 

Check the literature to see if it has any publishers name and address as if it isn't the company in question it may be worth contacting the publisher, I doubt it.

 

It may be that the most you will get is an accreditation and even that may have to "go legal" if your ex clients aren't amenable.

I await correction by anyone who has direct experience, my run-ins with publishing were of a slightly different nature.

[cfmonk]

Just my opinion:

 

You own the drawings and unless they have a written agreement from you allowing them to use them then they should not be using them at all.

 

You can ask them to pay you a fee or insist on them withdrawing the publication and reprinting without the drawings. Ghetty Images (big image selling firm) will charge people £1000 retrospectively if they find you using a photo of theirs without permission, even if you withdraw it completely.

 

Good copyright advice here: http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk

 

Chris

[kerry davies]

Hmmm. Good points Chris, and Paul may have redress under "Unregistered Design Rights".

"The UK 10 year duration is split into two 5 year periods: Exclusive rights are retained for the first 5 years, but during the last 5 years other parties are allowed to apply for licenses to the design (for which the owner may claim royalties)." so exclusive rights are out the window.

 

However, having tacitly or otherwise possibly given away those rights over five years ago, the client has set some sort of precedent as the original publisher. Paul may have UDR but the client may have registered the whole document on initial publication.

 

Paul you could take a chance,pay the £60 odd and register it here: https://secure.copyrightservice.co.uk/register/reg_online then approach the client in the knowledge that they may have registered 6 years ago or approach them first claiming UDR knowing that they may then try to register it before you can do so.

How much is it worth and will they eventually pay have to be the questions?

 

My own experience is that when I act as a contractor my client has IP rights but as a consultant I retain some rights, it depends whether or not the client can claim you did the designs for them as part of work for which you were paid. Otherwise nobody would or could ever employ an in-house designer confident that the employer owned the design.

Let us know how you get on please?

[tony g]

In a previous life I worked as a Graphic Designer so got involved to quite an extent with copyright issues, officially under what is called the Berne Convention, you, as creator of the work own the copyright so you could persue it but I would add a note of caution as this can be expensive, and ultimately what are a set of speculative drawings worth?, you will only get what a court judges them to be worth, which would be near nothing for you, because they are of a client/former clients premises, so you can't use them, and I doubt that anyone could prove they were of any monitary value to the client.

 

Such a long time has elapsed since you made the drawings that you most likely wouldn't win as any court would say you should have notified the client that they were breaking a copyright, were the drawings even marked as such?

 

This will all cost you money - that youl'l probably never see again. I lent a school a set of four Furse SFR lanterns for a production and the caretaker chucked them out (a man of good taste), thing is I could charge the school a tenner for the value of them, but then they would never use me again - not worth it. I also drew up detailed plans for a new incomer for another school for a quote, they then got another firm to do the work to my design, yep I could take them to task, but in the process I'd loose my county contract for sure, and what value are those drawings to me now?

[Jivemaster]

Unless you have good access to IP lawyers for free! It may cost you more money than they could ever be worth. The Copyright Design and Patents legislation may give you rights, but at your own legal costs now for the recovery of the rights. Also as above there may be bad feeling with present clients that could cost you much more in the long term.

 

Perhaps a formal request to the user of your drawings would achieve the result you want at low cost, perhaps not.

[tony g]

Unless you have good access to IP lawyers for free! It may cost you more money than they could ever be worth. The Copyright Design and Patents legislation may give you rights, but at your own legal costs nor for the recovery of the rights. Also as above there may be bad feeling with present clients that could cost you much more in the lng term.

 

Perhaps a formal request to the user of your drawings would achieve the result you want at low cost, perhaps not.

 

yeah, but even a formal request will sound odd after 6 years.

[slim_mcslim]

I only posted this topic to get some ideas of peoples opinions.

 

As far as I am concerned, it was in the past and I don't want/need money for them, and I will be very unlikely to attempt to pursue it through the courts (its hard enough to get cash when it is genuinely owed!!!)

 

But the thing that annoys me most though is, I would imagine that the current management within the hotel concerned don't even know that the graphic design agency that has drawn up their brochure didn't do the "plan" artwork contained within. Moreover they have just reproduced the plans verbatim, without taking into account the "new" spaces added to the hotel and reprinted them with my original icons representing power etc, but have failed to print the key anywhere!!!!

 

Now there maybe a chance we can restore/implement a new business relationship with this venue, given some new information, so I am unlikely to push this copyright issue particularly hard.

 

 

P.

[tony g]

If there is a chance of forming a new business relationship, why not make an appointment to meet with the new management to tell them all about the services you offer, take along a copy of their brochure with your drawing on it and add in to the conversation something like "take for example this plan we drew for you some 6 years ago", this should A) let them know it was your work B) Show them the organisation did the work <they obviously thought it was worthy of publication>, they may give you work on the back of it.

[slipstream]

Given how hotel management changes so fast, they probably have no idea who the drawings were done by or why, they just have them. The legal option is not going to earn any friends, and the original work was done for a client for whom you worked, and was arguably a gift. Your failure to object immediately to their publication backs up the gift status, which you would be unable to recind just because you fell out. Had you invoiced for the work and not been paid, you stand a chance.

 

TonyG's suggestion is probably the most reasonable, make friends and perhaps offer to update for changes since - you already have half the work done and on file.

 

Sam

[Dave]

Just stumbled across this. It's obviously another grey area.

 

You probably do own the copyright to your drawings, but the hotel could easily argue that you granted them a "perpetual irrevocable royalty-free licence" (in legal-speak) to use the drawings.

 

There may have been a verbal understanding that you would do the drawings for free and let the hotel publish them in return for being the hotel's preferred supplier. So if that stopped you could say that the hotel lost the rights to use the drawings. But proving that is probably impossible.

 

I used to spend a lot of time reviewing contracts etc and can say categorically that if you give any intellectual property to someone without a signed agreement, you create a can of big hairy worms that will one day burst open. I've seen it happen dozens of times. You don't necessarily need a lawyer to draw up such an agreement, just a bit of common sense (but obviously if the sums at stake are significant, then you should take professional advice).

 

Most recently a videographer friend rung me. They'd filmed a conference and gave a rough edit of the footage to one of the speakers. The speaker had re-edited the material, added his own captions, and posted it on his website. The videographer was very upset by this. But there was no written or verbal agreement, and no copyright notice anywhere. Was it any wonder that things went wrong?

[musht]

Havie had drawings used by an architect, would think an architect would have respect for the work and intellectual property embodied in designs, to try and get the design quoted elsewhere.

 

Now anything other than a napkin sketch has company name right across centre in light emboss, if client want`s a non watermarked set can pay full CAD fees to grant them a licence.

 

Its expensive to forget in this industry, the real commodity is ideas.

[Dave]

That's the oldest trick in the book - get someone knowledgable to do the design for free with the promise of a big job, and then pass their work to a bottom-feeder who'll do it for peanuts. I've even see people duplicate plans or specs and blank out the copyright statement etc in an attempt to hide the author. It's often worth getting the prospective client to sign a confidentiality agreement so they're aware that there will be repercussions if they're naughty.