- Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:36 pm
#242886
Codygo - Believe me, I am hardly carefree about billings and while I try to be strictly ethical with my work I am also quite mercenary 
In a sense you are right with some of your concerns, but realistically it would be an exceptional circumstance and what you are describing is them coming after you for use of something that they expect exclusive rights to - which I indicated should be different. At the end of the day you simply *cannot* give away your copyright, but you can give away rights of usage. Without explicitly giving away/selling exclusive rights they cannot come after you for reusing your own work later. That is my understanding, but I could be wrong - I'm not a lawyer 
Stuart: Would my mechanic give me his spanner? Depends on how much mark up he had made on it while doing the job For sure he would sell it to me because he can likely profit on it and he knows I can buy one elsewhwere without much trouble. In the end what he sells is his expertise in the use of the tools (same with the artist). When you hire him you pay something for the cost of his overhead but you mainly pay for use of his expert time. Same with me. You can't sell yourself based on the tools or a trick of technique - not for the long haul at least. Someone will always be able to duplicate a trick, it's inventing the tricks and knowing which tricks to use that makes you valuable IMO.
I don't think it is mportant that the client is a big money company. It's not an uncommon POV, just one I don't agree with. Virtually all my clients are large corporations: they are the one's who do most advertising. To me it doesn't matter who the client is or what they may profit - if you have decided what your time is worth on the job and you get it then that's what matters. Charging based on what they are going to do with it later or how much money they have just brings us back to where we started with the mechanic analogy. You can do it, but you should go both ways and charge less for stuff they have only limited use for - but nobody seems to want to do that I still suggest deciding if you are charging by usage or by time and stick to it. Doing both at the same time is common, but amounts to gouging IMO.
Anyway, for sure you will find precedent to charge more for the models and plenty who will agree with you if you do it.
b
In a sense you are right with some of your concerns, but realistically it would be an exceptional circumstance and what you are describing is them coming after you for use of something that they expect exclusive rights to - which I indicated should be different. At the end of the day you simply *cannot* give away your copyright, but you can give away rights of usage. Without explicitly giving away/selling exclusive rights they cannot come after you for reusing your own work later. That is my understanding, but I could be wrong - I'm not a lawyer Stuart: Would my mechanic give me his spanner? Depends on how much mark up he had made on it while doing the job
For sure he would sell it to me because he can likely profit on it and he knows I can buy one elsewhwere without much trouble. In the end what he sells is his expertise in the use of the tools (same with the artist). When you hire him you pay something for the cost of his overhead but you mainly pay for use of his expert time. Same with me. You can't sell yourself based on the tools or a trick of technique - not for the long haul at least. Someone will always be able to duplicate a trick, it's inventing the tricks and knowing which tricks to use that makes you valuable IMO.I don't think it is mportant that the client is a big money company. It's not an uncommon POV, just one I don't agree with. Virtually all my clients are large corporations: they are the one's who do most advertising. To me it doesn't matter who the client is or what they may profit - if you have decided what your time is worth on the job and you get it then that's what matters. Charging based on what they are going to do with it later or how much money they have just brings us back to where we started with the mechanic analogy. You can do it, but you should go both ways and charge less for stuff they have only limited use for - but nobody seems to want to do that
I still suggest deciding if you are charging by usage or by time and stick to it. Doing both at the same time is common, but amounts to gouging IMO.Anyway, for sure you will find precedent to charge more for the models and plenty who will agree with you if you do it.
b
Brett Simms
http://www.heavyartillery.com
http://www.heavyartillery.com
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