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Good to hear (commission paid or greens returned?)

Both, I think. Mick tells me the FB posting was old news, he has talked with the sculptor since then, and every things fine now.
I don't know the particulars of the deal, that is between them.

I usually ask for a deposit of 1/3 the total, and full payment upon completion and approval. After payment has been made I ship them out.

Sometimes I ask for shipping to be reimbursed, but that's usually only for international shipping since it's more expensive.

The one time I didn't ask for a deposit, that's when things went wrong. I won't make that mistake again.

 Cyporiean wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
Intellectual property is complex, so it is always best to have an agreement bound within an explicit, unambiguous contract.

Yeah, but that'd require this industry to actually use contracts.

Some companies do use contracts, but that's irrelevant if the company itself isn't professional, as many in this industry are.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:

Some companies do use contracts, but that's irrelevant if the company itself isn't professional, as many in this industry are.

Bingo-Bango.

Contracts are like life preservers on an airplane. Not having them is insane, because if things do go to all fething Hell, they might make things less horribly terrifying. They are also, like life preservers on an airplane, important for business purposes aside from their intended use.

The relationship has to be built on trust and mutual respect or it isn't going to work and neither party is going to be happy. I have contracts with the third parties we use in my day job, but that doesn't stop bad vendors from fething things up. Bad vendors are bad, contracts or no, and you just don't use them anymore.

Same with artists, in my opinion. Make sure to have a contract, because it is a great way to test the waters with a contractor. If you can't agree on contract terms, that's a really good indication that the relationship isn't going to work out. They are also good for record keeping. My contracts have the artist's name and contact info in them, a list of products/services, payment terms, etc. All that important information is preserved should it become important later on.

But as I said before, whatever your contract terms are, pay the artist. I am about to pay an artist for a piece I don't particularly want or need, even though I could argue that based on our deal, I should not have to pay for it. It was a trial piece that the artist offered to to for free. We are using another artist for those services, so I could say, 'Sorry man, we aren't going to hire you for that series, so you don't get paid'. But why in the Hell should I do that? To save a little money? In the end, not paying, deal or not, is a far higher cost to pay.

And it will leave the artist more willing to work with you in the future.

Being a stand up guy counts for a lot, trust begets trust.

The Auld Grump

I spoke to an attorney once about using contracts because previously everything was detailed in an e-mail; cost, deposits, corrections, final payments etc.

He said it would be better to have a proper contract, but if problems do occur the e-mails would suffice if the issue at hand was discussed in the e-mail.

But like I said, so far I've only had one problem in the last 2 years.

Now that I've stated that, enter Murphy's Law.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
I spoke to an attorney once about using contracts because previously everything was detailed in an e-mail; cost, deposits, corrections, final payments etc.

He said it would be better to have a proper contract, but if problems do occur the e-mails would suffice if the issue at hand was discussed in the e-mail.

But like I said, so far I've only had one problem in the last 2 years.

Now that I've stated that, enter Murphy's Law.

A contract exists so long as there has been a 'meeting of the minds'. In other words, when both parties make an agreement and mutually understand the scope of that agreement, you effectively have a contract.

A written contract is simply a very explicit way to demonstrate both the scope of the agreement and that there has been a meeting of the minds. If problems do occur, you are also better off if the language of your agreement is largely boilerplate, that is, a quickly and readily understood agreement, the scope and nuances of which have been well-defined.

I also find it easier to dig up a contract than to troll through email communications.

At the end of the day, you don't want to get into a legal battle even if you wind up getting screwed, and in lots of cases the damages are going to be too small to really bother about or one party or the other is going to be effectively judgement proof.

When it comes to copyright though...you have to cover your keister now because you never know what is going to happen decades down the line. Just look at what GW was dealing with in the CHS case. The last thing you want is to have some issue pop up about a piece of work you hired a freelancer to do 20 years ago just because you were too small, inexperienced, lazy, etc. to do things right at the time.

Mind you, GW trying to get the artists to hand over the copyrights post facto was a bit much.... Especially during an ongoing lawsuit over copyright issues.... (Or was that patent issues... or trademark issues - ah, well, those are the same things, right? )

For gods' sakes, make sure your IP guy at least knows what IP is!

A good contract protects both parties.

The Auld Grump

Did 20 yeAR old freelance work come up in that case?

I'm wondering now if I might still own the design rights to the Demiurge ships I sculpted for FW.

They were sculpted on my own as generic ships using my own design. Tony offered to buy them to use for BFG when he visited Baltimore HQ way back when. There was no contract for them.

Now my sculpting skills are far more refined I always wanted to go back and sculpt new versions of them.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
I'm wondering now if I might still own the design rights to the Demiurge ships I sculpted for FW.

They were sculpted on my own as generic ships using my own design. Tony offered to buy them to use for BFG when he visited Baltimore HQ way back when. There was no contract for them.

Now my sculpting skills are far more refined I always wanted to go back and sculpt new versions of them.

If there was no written agreement, it becomes a he-said-she-said situation, and I expect that you (the artist) would be in a rather favorable position. The company likely cannot prove that you were an employee at the time, and even if they can prove that you worked in the Baltimore HQ doing...whatever you were doing...GW would have a very hard time arguing that your sculpts were created during the scope of your employment.

I am guessing that although the pieces happened to be in the Baltimore HQ at the time Tony visited, they were created by you, at home and after work hours.

The company almost certainly cannot prove that any transaction had been made at all. Heck, you might be mistaken, and Tony might have borrowed the sculpts for purposes of evaluating them back in Nottingham, and GW simply used them entirely without permission.

Even if you stipulate that a transaction was made, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the transaction was simply a limited license to your design. Gary Chalk asserted as much in the GW v CHS case, and it is a common practice.

GW is also not in a terribly strong position to fight it out, other than having some money to burn. Even so, there's a few lawyers in the world that, for some odd reason, are not terribly fond of GW.

If you own the copyright to the work, as in, if you did not transfer ownership of the works to GW, you are entitled to make derivative works based on works of art that you own the rights to.

Weeble - You've given me a lot to think about.

I know I wouldn't be able to use the terms "Demiurge" or the names of the ships, I'm more interested in refining my old design now that I'm a more skilled sculptor.

weeble1000 wrote:
That I just don't understand. You do the work, you get paid. That's my philosophy.

In my neck of the woods, you do the work, the contract says you'll be paid in 3-9 months, the company files for bancrupcy, it has zero assets so you get a big fat nothing, same guy opens a new company next morning and hires some new suckers.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
Weeble - You've given me a lot to think about.

I know I wouldn't be able to use the terms "Demiurge" or the names of the ships, I'm more interested in refining my old design now that I'm a more skilled sculptor.

Please make them, not enough ships that can be used for BFG on the market!

 lord_blackfang wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
That I just don't understand. You do the work, you get paid. That's my philosophy.

In my neck of the woods, you do the work, the contract says you'll be paid in 3-9 months, the company files for bancrupcy, it has zero assets so you get a big fat nothing, same guy opens a new company next morning and hires some new suckers.

Jebus. That's bleak.

 malfred wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
That I just don't understand. You do the work, you get paid. That's my philosophy.

In my neck of the woods, you do the work, the contract says you'll be paid in 3-9 months, the company files for bancrupcy, it has zero assets so you get a big fat nothing, same guy opens a new company next morning and hires some new suckers.

Jebus. That's bleak.

It's one of the down sides to living in a civilized country. The authorities get upset when folks like that get lynched.