Copyright laws etc
YourNameHere (6 pencils) | Fri, 2008-04-18 19:34Hello all. let me introduce myself. My name is Scott. I have been surfing on this website for a few months but this is my 1st post. I have been in the field for roughly 5 years now.
I am an artist at a growing direct mailing company. 90% of the work we do is junk mail for car dealerships. here is the problem i am having. Before i was hired the company did no design in-house. It was a printing house and thats it. With that said, no one here understands the rules and workflow of design.
- we do spec work CONSTANTLY! and do not charge anything for canceling the job. which people do regularly right after the art is finished.....ironicly
- when i create a new piece for a client i can spend upwards of 6 weeks working on it while they make changes! the record so far is 36 revisions! for a 2500 piece run!
as well as few other things but this i what bothers me most!
- Im not aloud to send samples out with a water mark. the owner thinks it will scare customers away. this week we had a piece sent to us which was identical to one of my samples. yet i did not create the piece. they flat out stole the piece! my boss will not pursue them (even though we know who it is) because he claims my work is not protected by copyright law because we didnt file for one yada yada yada. now i have always had the understanding any creative work is protected regardless. and on that same note, i am forced to constantly COPY other peoples art. i refuse as much as i can and alter the art but it comes down to either i do exactly as they want or i lose my job.
I NEED HELP! i need resources to show my boss to prove that what we are doing is extremely dangerous and illegal and just waiting for a law suit. anything you can give me, links, address for some kind of creative company consultant SOMETHING! i really enjoy working where i am, and im afraid in this economy that i would never find a new job. but i cant continue to knowingly steal work from another artist.
thank you!
scott
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
Nothing you show your boss will have the desired effect. Your position is only an incentive to increase sales which keeps their presses running. Not sure what else to say man except I feel for ya. Good luck getting out of there.
Without my sense of direction, I don't know where I'd be.
with my assume things in regards to copyright. i can get over the spec work and all that...but im not a thief. if i can at-least find something to back up my claim i might be able to do something.
i think caoimghgin's point was that your boss probably just doesn't care, even if you *do* show him some sort of evidence.
try looking around on www.aiga.org or www.creativepro.com. i'm sure aiga has some good info about intellectual property in graphic design.
Your work is copyrighted the moment you create it. Registering it only adds the ability to recover legal fees and some additional damages if you're successful in legal actions.
That being said, since you work for a company, YOU don't own the copyright, the company/owner does. It's up to him to pursue any legal action.
Google copyright law and you'll get al the information you need.
That being said, I think it's a waste of your time. If your boss is so lax about this to begin with, he most likely won't pursue it anyway.
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The owner of the company you work for owns whatever work is created there, as long as no other copyrights are infringed upon by that work. He's basically giving away his designs for free and it's a shame.
It would be much smarter to charge for the design before it begins and then don't provide any high res samples of the art for proofing.
Your heart is in the right place, but if the owner is this lax you're probably not going to convince him unless you show him exactly how much money he's losing on revisions, lost time and stolen artwork.
It sounds like you keep track of your time in detail so you can use this to great effect. Just multiply all the lost hours by your hourly rate and you can show your boss a quick figure. Make sure it's for the entire year for greatest effect.
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