You negotitated to create a character for a studio, and agreed on a price for a non exclusive license (allowing me the artist to onsell the model as a stock asset), then discovered after agreeing price that its a trademarked character to a third party and that for me to onsell it has copyright risks, and then those risks would be transferred to any vendor that also sells my stuff?
Should I take it on the chin, and deliver at the said cheap price and chalk it up to experience?
Should I request without negotiation that the exclusive price be paid rather than the non-exclusive?
Interested in your thoughts. It was suggested that I change the texture before onselling but then thats also more work than I agreed to, and still potentially carries IP liabilities I guess.
Theres also the “More work in future” aspect of working for this studio that I need to consider.
Since you only found out it was copyrighted ater the negotiation and the company must not have known at the time either, contact the company and tell them it is a copyrighted model. If they are reputable they will not ask you to deliver the model but something else that isn’t copyrighted. There should be some allowance for the time spent on the work already.
They did know it was copyrighted though. They sent me images which I thought were original reference art, and after we agreed, when I asked for more reference they referred me to google, and it is a character owned by a multinational corporation. The studio was taking the cheapest route, though not IMO the most sensible. The deadline for delivery is within 24 hours so I’m doing the work because I said I would to begin with, but its a bit of a crap deal for me. I could throw a spanner in the works by refusing to deliver or demanding full price (Which is still fairly cheap) but I don’t like to be an ass about it. They also haggled my price down which was a little annoying.
which is a fair call. Its the first time I’ve had to deal with trademarked content, and it caught me by stealth, so I think I will do the right thing by my part and finish the deal, and call it lesson learned.
I would first let the client know the predicament this situation put me in, then nicely explain why I was unwilling to work under such a predicament, and finally, return all monies and terminate the agreement. Although that would mean I would not get paid for work done, it also would be the cleanest way to end things. I would also destroy all copies of artwork for the project, but keep all correspondence.
My reasons for handling it this way are:
a. A copyright infringement lawsuit can easily cost many times your annual income, much less what the project pays. And yes, a lawsuit involving your client will very likely include you. Not worth the risk.
b. It’s all about karma. Infringing on another artist’s copyrights is just a bad thing to do.
I would explain to them that it is copyrighted material and that you will not break copyright laws to perform this work. If they do not understand the high risks and legal complications of copyright infringement, their non-professionalism could ruin your professional name. This is regardless of whether they claim to have the money to pay legal fees or other consequences if they arise. If they foot the bill or not, it risks marring your reputation as an artist and could ruin your career. By all means you should not complete the project and withdraw from all of their agreements. Cut ties with such a company asap.