A question for freelance artist and graphic designers

Your take is the correct one Shin. That is how this shit goes unless you are dealing with an amateur (Not trying to call Finch an amateur, everyone is free to handle their business how they see fit, I'm just talking about a general industry standard). Unless you specified that you expected all the files at the end of the deal, and that was part of the agreed price, then you already got what you paid for. Expect a good sized price tag for all the files, because that is basically selling any chance of future work with the client.

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

It's no different than if you were making and selling guitar amps. If I said to you, hey I like this amp you sold me, can you give me the schematics, and instructions on how to make it so that I can then get my friend to do it for 1/5th the price. That would be pretty shitty for you.

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that is actually how it works in all engineering. No one pays just for a finished product. They pay for everything.

If I go work at fender and they pay me to design an amp, they own everything. They get the schematic, art, bill of materials, PCB layout, testing information, everything. If I then leave Fender, all of that material will be accessible to the people after me and I will not get paid for any of their work.

This is generally how all engineering works. Ford owns all of the work of their engineers. If one of them leaves to work at Ducati, he does not get any money for the work he did at Ford. He will not even receive money from patents that were filed jointly between him and his previous employer.

With guitar amps, even if you contract only production and not the design, it is common to send along documentation that could be used to copy said amplifier. In fact, it is kind of frowned upon in the amplifier world to NOT make your schematics available for repair work. Its a good way to get called a cork sniffing faggot. Before the mid 80s it was common to package this kind of documentation with electronics. If you ever look inside an old radio, you should see a circuit and parts layout schematic.

In other words, if Josh ask me to design him an amplifier, he would own all of my work and I would be obliged to send him all my documentation and files.

If he paid for me to build him an amplifier, I would be less obliged, but still probably give it to him as a business courtesy. This courtesy is getting less common, but is still common and some what expected in the world of electronic music.

I'm not an amateur, i'm an auteur.

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

It's not malice or greed. 1. You're paying for a final product.

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I was not under that impression. But I'm glad I figured this out sooner than later. I'm going to be more specific in the future.

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

You're not paying for their plans, or the materials or parts, you're paying for a final product. If you want it set up with 6 of them on one sheet then state that in the initial contract. 2. They're protecting themselves. I had a few friends express stories of handing over files with the people they gave it to claiming there would be more work in the future. Then they find out that those people just hired a shittier GDer who charged less and gave my friends files to them to work from. So by giving them that they just lost money and work. There's nothing greedy about that, as a freelancer you never know where the next job or paycheck is going to come from and losing one to some one else sucks ass. Specially when that person is just building off your work.

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I don't have any sympathy for this line of thinking.

Eh, it goes both ways. You take jobs and you lose them.

Shin's correct all up in this bitch.

Finch, draw more. Give away your work less.

Edit: Just saw the "Draw Something" thread. Er, continue drawing.

I'd file this under revisions. Meaning, when you set up a freelance contract it is a good idea to put in an allowance for revisions to the design. So maybe you'll agree on a price for the logo/print/whatever design and then say "I'll do revisions to it twice for the agreed upon price." Anything after that will cost you extra. Otherwise you'll get people that expect you to endlessly work on something saying that "it should only take you ten minutes blahablablabla!"

If all you need is the (presumably) vector logo scaled down onto a page 6 times instead of 1 that's not a big deal, as long as you are aware that it'll print smaller. I don't think you need their original files.

You bought a can of soup, not the recipe.

Cheeks: totally different things being compared there. A company hiring you to design how a product works needs those things in order to craft the product and make it function. A piece of artwork or video doesn't need anything else to make it work, it's designed to be seen a certain way and that's all it ever has to do. It doesn't need to ever be repaired, it won't break down, it won't be returned by a customer, and so on.

Depends on the client. Usually no. Think of it as the blueprints of your house. A builder can build you a house, but he doesn't have to show you HOW to build a house. Photoshop files in particular contain step-by-step details about how you did what you did. In some cases where I've had to reluctantly give clients Photoshop files I've always stripped everything away as much as possible.

Of course it's always on a case-by-case basis. If the client is payed up but I don't ever want to deal with them again I'd be willing to give them the magic - since i don't want to hear from them again. I generally try to keep good terms with my clients who pay regularly so I would acquiesce to their demands. I would just strip out a lot of the info first ("flatten" shit as much as possible and render blend modes and layer styles).

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

that is actually how it works in all engineering. No one pays just for a finished product. They pay for everything.

If I go work at fender and they pay me to design an amp, they own everything. They get the schematic, art, bill of materials, PCB layout, testing information, everything. If I then leave Fender, all of that material will be accessible to the people after me and I will not get paid for any of their work.

This is generally how all engineering works. Ford owns all of the work of their engineers. If one of them leaves to work at Ducati, he does not get any money for the work he did at Ford. He will not even receive money from patents that were filed jointly between him and his previous employer.

With guitar amps, even if you contract only production and not the design, it is common to send along documentation that could be used to copy said amplifier. In fact, it is kind of frowned upon in the amplifier world to NOT make your schematics available for repair work. Its a good way to get called a cork sniffing faggot. Before the mid 80s it was common to package this kind of documentation with electronics. If you ever look inside an old radio, you should see a circuit and parts layout schematic.

In other words, if Josh ask me to design him an amplifier, he would own all of my work and I would be obliged to send him all my documentation and files.

If he paid for me to build him an amplifier, I would be less obliged, but still probably give it to him as a business courtesy. This courtesy is getting less common, but is still common and some what expected in the world of electronic music.

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But this is completely different. In this case Ford is your EMPLOYER. If you're freelancing you are your own employer. Ford isn't going to give the plans to anybody for obvious copyright protection reasons. If you work at an agency and are doing work for them they own your files. If you're freelancing FOR the agency they probably have a service agreement making those files theirs. If they don't the ownership is yours at best and joint at worse.

If you're just freelancing for an individual party chances are they're paying for the end result. If you want all of the files you have to specify that up front. Otherwise nope.

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

that is actually how it works in all engineering. No one pays just for a finished product. They pay for everything.

If I go work at fender and they pay me to design an amp, they own everything. They get the schematic, art, bill of materials, PCB layout, testing information, everything. If I then leave Fender, all of that material will be accessible to the people after me and I will not get paid for any of their work.

This is generally how all engineering works. Ford owns all of the work of their engineers. If one of them leaves to work at Ducati, he does not get any money for the work he did at Ford. He will not even receive money from patents that were filed jointly between him and his previous employer.

With guitar amps, even if you contract only production and not the design, it is common to send along documentation that could be used to copy said amplifier. In fact, it is kind of frowned upon in the amplifier world to NOT make your schematics available for repair work. Its a good way to get called a cork sniffing faggot. Before the mid 80s it was common to package this kind of documentation with electronics. If you ever look inside an old radio, you should see a circuit and parts layout schematic.

In other words, if Josh ask me to design him an amplifier, he would own all of my work and I would be obliged to send him all my documentation and files.

If he paid for me to build him an amplifier, I would be less obliged, but still probably give it to him as a business courtesy. This courtesy is getting less common, but is still common and some what expected in the world of electronic music.

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Working for an employer and being a freelancer are two completely different things. As a freelancer you are your own employer and are a contract worker. Which gives you certain rights and freedoms that say some one who was staff for the same company wouldn't have. Though in the same token being staff offers things a freelancer wouldn't get. You're looking at it as Fender paying you for a guitar amp. Look at it as joe schmo buying a guitar amp from Fender. Fender doesn't give me the blueprints and schematics for the amp a long with it. You're not Fender in this situation, you're Joe Schmo.