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I work in Rights Management and Licensing at a large academic publisher. Every day I pay writers, artists, photographers, and their agents for the rights to reprint their work in textbooks. And far too often, I see writers who lowball their prices, agents who are failing to represent their clients' best interests, and photographers who are screwing themselves out of payments because they don't return a simple tax form. I'm writing this thread because I hate seeing artists and writers undervaluing themselves and their work. We have plenty of resources for getting creative help, but it's just as important that we share knowledge about how to navigate the business part of this industry. So I've partnered with our intrepid leader, pipes!, to bring you this thread of advice. We'll be covering: I. General advice II. Advice for writers III. Advice for graphic designers IV. You have Rights!: General advice on copyright and ownership  DISCLAIMER! We are not lawyers! (thank god!) The advice we’re giving here is to the best of our knowledge from our work in the industry. It is not legal advice. I. General Advice 1. HAVE A CONTRACT  We cannot state this in large enough font, or with sparkly enough letters. A contract makes sure both parties know and agree to the terms of your working relationship. A contract protects you from being taken advantage of. If the other party doesn't want to sign a contract, DO NOT WORK FOR THEM. Honest businesspeople sign contracts, and you'll only get trouble (if not an outright screwing) from anyone who doesn't. No amount of “publicity” or “opportunity” is worth it. Make sure you READ the contract. Know what you’re agreeing to! If there is a stipulation in the contract that is not in your favor, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate (see Section 3.). Your contract doesn't have to be a load of crazy intense legal jargon. It needs to state what work you’re agreeing to do, for what compensation, on what time table. It needs to clearly state who will own what rights to the work, and protect you in case things go badly. We’ll cover more contract advice in the industry-specific sections for writers and designers. 1a. Send an INVOICE An invoice is a document billing the company for services rendered. Many companies require an invoice in order to process payment. Make sure you send it in a timely fashion, because after all, you want to get paid! An invoice should include: ● the date ● a reference to the job performed. If you plan on doing more than one piece of work this year (and you should), assign it a job number/invoice number too for reference. ● the number of hours worked (if you’re billing by the hour, or have been asked to itemize your time) ● the amount due (prominently) ● the date by which payment due (and what happens if they miss that date, which should already be in the contract) ● details of how and where the payment can be made (a check sent to <your name> at <your address>, a wire transfer to your offshore bank, a delivery of blood oranges to a local P.O. box, etc). ● always include your address and contact info even if they are not sending a check to you there. When you send the invoice, especially to new employers, be sure to include a W9 tax form (see below). 2. Don't work for free This one might seem hard, especially for recent grads just starting out. By not working for free, you're saying that your talent is worth paying for, and clients are more likely to respect your time and skills. You might get fewer clients by raising your standards but they will be better clients, and your quality of life will increase dramatically. This includes working for friends and family, which will only make you resentful and bitter. Don’t believe us? Here is a handy chart: http://shouldiworkforfree.com/ 3. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate Do not be afraid, my fellow creatives! Negotiating is part of any healthy business relationship. Your business associates know that your work has value: otherwise they wouldn’t be contracting for your services. If they are a professional business, who want to work with you, then little negotiating will not scare them away! When negotiating payment, always ask for more money than you’d settle for! If you lowball a company to start, it will be much harder to raise your rates later. So be bold and ask for what you want. If you’ll work for $20 an hour, quote them $30. If you’ll take $200 for your piece quote them $500. You might not get all of it, but you might be pleasantly surprised with the results. The exchange that kills me most, that made me want to write this entire post, goes like this: quote:Me: I'd like to reprint your work in a textbook. Fee is not the only part of the contract you can negotiate. If the delivery date is unreasonable, have it moved back! If the contract doesn’t include a termination clause, have them add one! You want to make sure you protect not only your payment, but also your time, your sanity, and the future of your creative work. Some of these parts of your contract might turn out to be unchangeable. If, for example, it is your client’s company policy to have all rights to your creative work immediately transfer to the company, and they will not sign a contract without such a clause, you might well not be ok with this! You can try to negotiate a compromise (rights transfer upon complete payment, or you retain the right to use the work on your portfolio site, etc.) or—and this is key—you can decide not to work for them. In any good contract, both sides will feel like they gave up something. But if you feel like you’re being taken advantage of, and the client or publisher refuses to negotiate important terms, just walk away. 4. gently caress you, pay me http://vimeo.com/22053820?utm_source=swissmiss Watch this video. Then watch it again, and take notes. Then watch it again. Mike Monteiro knows what he is talking about. The more you try to make a living on creative work, the more likely it is that people will try to screw you. They will try to take advantage of you and your skills. They will try to make you work for free, or at unfair rates, or far beyond your agreed commitment. They will do this willfully if they are jackasses, or through ignorance if they don’t understand how to run their business or work with creatives. The important lesson to remember here is that creative work IS meaningful and important in the business world. Your work product has value, and you deserve to be compensated for your hard work and expertise. Take the time to protect yourself legally with a contract, and when the payment is due, don’t take any excuses. gently caress you, pay me. When they do agree to pay you, please try to make it legit and safe. Don’t meet them at that sketchy McDonald’s by the onramp and accept a burlap sack of homegrown beets or a baggie full of wacky tobaccy. Don’t accept stock options, lottery tickets, sexual favors (ew), or empty promises. Make sure the amount they’re paying you is the same as what’s on the invoice. 5. Taxes and W9s In order to pay my vendors, I must have official documentation that verifies their identity. For US citizens and corporations, this is a W9. For foreign vendors, a W8. This is a W9 form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf It’s handy to have one already filled out, signed, and scanned, so that you don’t have to do it every time you work for a new company. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RETURN YOUR W9. It is not scary, I promise. All you have to do is fill out your name, address, and SSN, then sign it at the bottom. Yet so many authors and publishing companies neglect to do this simple task, requiring me to hound them for months. Even when this is the only thing standing between them and their payment. If someone said to me that all I had to do to get a couple hundred bucks was write my name and address on a tax form, I would fill that poo poo out twice and ask if I got paid double for duplicates. “But what if I don’t want to give out my social security number!”  Then you’re a big naïve baby and I hate you. Thanks to Citizens United, Obama-mart Inc. is already coming to your house to detain you indefinitely in Guantanamo on the flimsiest terrorism pretext, so you might as well get paid before the next SOPA clone shuts down the whole internet and Arizona bans speaking with a Mexican accent. Or move to a commune or whatever artists-who-don’t-actually-want-to-make-any-money do. Just fill out your W9 first. Please note: you have to declare any wages and royalties on your taxes. This can be an unpleasant surprise for freelancers at the end of the year. The company you worked for is legally required to provide you with a W2 for the previous year by the end of January. If you are a foreign person or company (aka foreign vendor) working for an American company, you may have up to 30% of your payment taken out in taxes. Ask your contact if this is the case in your situation. If so, the way to fix this is either to charge them more to make up the difference (please note that you’ll need to charge up to 45% more on your invoice to make up for a 30% tax rate, because of how percentages of totals work), or you can obtain an American EIN (companies) or ITIN (individuals). If anyone really wants this information, we can go into it later, but suffice to say, it’s dealing with the IRS, which is always a clusterfuck. If you’ve ever dealt with a corporate accounting department, you’ll know they move slowly. If your contact is acting in good faith and trying to pay you, it still might take a while. By all means, remind them that you exist, but understand that your poor editorial contact likely does not have much to say about when a check is cut after she’s submitted it. 6. Be contactable If someone sees your work on the internet/in a magazine/on the evening news and they want to ask you permission to use it, they need to be able to find you. So throw them a bone—an email, a website, a fax number, anything—and remember to check it regularly. Throw up a Wordpress blog with the information, or better yet, a personal website with your clips. If you’re an artist or photographer, enter your info in the metadata. Everyone, insist on including crediting for your work (see below), or contact information in your bio. I know it's all “authentic” to hide out in a unabomber shack and bang out your novels in the mountains, but for god's sake make your contact info searchable. Even if it's just your bullshit aol email, I need to know how to contact you (and when I send a reprint request, answer it!). You're only screwing yourself out of money if you don't. Designers, this means having a portfolio website, with contact information on it. Preferably your own site, with your name google searchable, not some bullshit DeviantArt account. Photographers, watermark your photos and put your contact info in the metadata. Similarly, if you get contacted by someone at a publishing company, keep their information. It should be in the signature of their email, but if it’s not, write it down and email it to yourself. When you have a question, or your payment is late, or something has gone horribly wrong, it’s important to have an ally on the inside. Otherwise, in even a middling size company, they can disavow knowledge that you even exist. II. Advice for Designers (by pipes!) 1. Bill in Phases If you follow any of the advice here, holy poo poo do this: Don’t collect only upon completion of the project. In the Statement of Work, define the phases of the project that you will be involved in (for site design it’s usually something along the lines of Research, Define, Design, Deploy), and bill a portion upon the completion of the milestone. Not only does it not put all of your eggs in one basket, but it also conveniently serves to involve the client more in the design process. You aren’t just a person hitting the Photoshop button; in interacting with the client through the various phases you help communicate the specifics of your work, with the added benefit of gaining additional context about the project that you otherwise may have never had the opportunity to learn. This makes for far better design, a more healthy designer/client relationship, and a much smaller chance of you being completely screwed. 2. Revisions Limit Client Amend/Revisions are a natural part of the design process. Specifying in the contract the number of revisions, and what constitutes a revision, is paramount (unless you enjoy an endless parade of “little changes” that hang over your head forever). Remember: the more revisions you perform out of scope, the less you’re technically worth (since you're putting in more man-hours for the same price). Taking on further revisions past the ones specified is completely acceptable, so long as you’re willing to do it, but it will necessitate a renegotiation of terms. There’s also the question of perception and professionalism: You have specialized knowledge and talents in your field of choice, and are hired to employ them. Knowing when and how to say no is an important skill to learn. 3. Agile Deadlines Someone else’s lack of organization shouldn’t be your problem. If a client (or a subcontractor) fails to deliver you content required in the time outlined, your deadlines should adjust accordingly. Similarly, if the content delivered isn’t up to snuff, your deadlines should also shift to reflect the time it takes to properly format it (if you have to do it, make sure you charge for it). Employing agile deadlines also helps to reinforce to the client that what you do takes time and effort without actually having to say it, and is is also nicer than just walking away from the project completely (although you could if you wanted to, provided the legal documentation supported it). 4. Termination Clause A lot of design contracts don’t include these, more because a lot of designers don’t know it exists. Also known as a Kill Fee, the Termination Clause outlines a proportionate amount of compensation for work commissioned and undertook, but ultimately canceled. It ensures that the time you spent on a project, whether or not it is completed, is compensated. This may seem harsh or unethical to some (until you have your first crazy client that tries to back out of paying you), but the Termination Clause can also be good insurance against any work you take where you have a weird feeling about the client’s reliability. Personally, I have a pretty aggressive kill fee by default (I consider it an rear end in a top hat Tax), and adjust it on a case-by-case basis, tempered by length and quality of relationship and instinct. My time is valuable. So is yours. 5. Ownership and Deliverables Establish who gets what and to what extent beforehand. Does the client get the source Photoshop source files alongside the delivered code? poo poo, do they even get the source code? Remember, the client having access to the building blocks will enable them to expand upon what you’ve made (potentially good), but also find someone cheaper to continue expanding (bad). Also remember that your reputation is tied up into the work you produce; if delivering source files leads to them wrecking your design, it may affect your future business prospects. Speaking of which, you have the right to display your work in your portfolio as a method of advertising your abilities. If clients demand that you don’t show your work (and there are ways around disclosing sensitive info), you need to receive compensation enough to make up for the loss in potential business. As a rule of thumb, avoid Work for Hire scenarios. It’s a shitshow that empowers corporate slavedrivers to remove most of the rights discussed here and it will leave you cheated and miserable. 6. Don’t work for stock options/exposure Hey, wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn? 7. Legal People are terrible and don’t communicate well with each other, even on the best of days. On a long enough timeline, something will fall apart somewhere, and then you need the courts. Get a lawyer to look over your contract, and then any time any significant adjustment/update is made to it to ensure it’s watertight. It might be a little pricey upfront, but it will save you in the long run (especially if you plan on making freelancing your main source of income). Copy/pasting legalese boilerplate from bobloblaw.biz may initially look legit, but any competent lawyer will gleefully rip it to shreds. Be sure to include: ● Limitation of Liability This prevents your client from suing you for damages beyond scope. Translation: cleaning you out because of bad blood/any convenient excuse. ● Arbitration Avoid court if at all possible, especially for petty disagreements. ● Choice of Law Give yourself the home court advantage. If you take on a project from a client located across the county, make sure that if it comes to court, you don’t have to travel (and pay out-of-pocket to do so). 9. Contests, Crowdsourcing, and Spec Work Don’t. Just don’t. I could go on and on about how these things are awful and degrade the entire industry, but someone has already captured what needs to be said far more comprehensively than I ever could: http://www.no-spec.com/faq/ Edit: new video explaining why spec work is bad, in easy to understand language (especially for non-designers)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsstOs-K7gk 10. General Advice on Rates I know this is what everyone wants to know, and unfortunately, there’s no one magic bullet answer. There is no standard rate for design work (consider scope, skill, location, etc.), and all design projects are different. Still, you should have a ballpark idea of what you want to charge based on how much work it will take, over how much time, and how difficult it will be. One good tactic is to check out the competition. Check out similar creatives in your area/scope of work, see how much they’re charging, and adjust your rates as needed. An uncomfortable truth about business is that once you graduate past retail level, there’s seldom a concrete price tag for anything; here haggling and negotiation are king. Other (relatively) helptful starting points: How Much Does A Website Cost? AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries Pricing Strategy for Creatives Photoshoots: Charge by the Hour. You will not regret it. Some general flat rates for photographers publishing in books, by format or print run: ● Stock photos/illustrations (interior): ~$150-$300 ● Stock photos/illustrations (cover): ~$500-$600 ● AP photos: ~$85-$150 by print run ● Reuse fee (image repeated on front and back cover, or on a second edition of the same title: ~50% of original cost Selling your work to stock agencies: If you, unlike Defenestration, have photography skills, and you have some nice photos from your vacation/hometown/women-laughing-with-salad-colony sitting around on your hard drive, you might consider submitting them to stock photo sites. Every place is different, but you’ll earn a percentage every time the photo is licensed for outside use. Read the contract carefully to see what the terms are, and under what circumstances your take would change. Avoid selling exclusive rights to one single rightsholder if possible, unless the fee is an offer in, say, the 5-digit range. Think of it as giving up all the potential earnings that photo might have made you over a lifetime, and consider if the deal is worth that. If anyone has any inside tips on being successful at the stock photo game, please post and we’ll add them to the OP! III. Advice For Writers 1. Contracts As I said above, contracts do not have to be tomes of heavy legal jargon. For writers, it should include: ● The scope of the work (Do they want to reprint a particular short story of yours? Do they want you to write sets of encyclopedia articles, or thousand-word law firm profiles?) ● Which rights you are granting the publisher and which you will retain for yourself. (The rights you grant are a key part of the negotiation. Make sure you know what you are granting!) - It’s best to keep the rights to your own work whenever possible, however this is rarely the case when you have been contracted to write work-for-hire content for a company or website - What territory and languages can they publish in? Do they have print or electronic rights, or both? Do they have the right to sell subrights licenses for foreign language editions? Do they have the right to sell derivative works (aka custom books) using your content from this edition? - Literary magazines often ask for what is called First Serial Rights, which means they have the right to be the first to publish your story, and also to keep using it future printings of that volume. But after it appears in the first serial journal, you are free to take it elsewhere and, for example, publish it in a collection of short stories. (Note that most literary journals do not accept previously published work.) ● The date you will provide the manuscript by ● What the payment will be, and when it will be due ● The name and title of the person signing the contract on behalf of the publisher (also very important if something goes wrong) ● You might also want to include a clause that says the publisher may not make and publish any edits to your work without your approval. Otherwise they might chop out large sections for space consideration, or otherwise change the message of the piece with their edits. Note that a book contract is much more complicated, but these days, if you’re getting a book published at a non-vanity house (with the exception of some technical or niche market houses) you’ll have an agent to negotiate on your behalf. 2. Fees Writers, your situation is a little different than our friends the graphic designers. The basic principles still count, including Don’t Work For Free. But the reality is that most literary journals don’t pay their contributors. It’s still important to publish whenever you can, to build up your clips. This doesn’t mean you should let publications get away without giving you some kind of compensation (contributor copies, a year’s subscription, etc), and you definitely shouldn’t do work-for-hire on spec. When you get published for actual money, know your rates! Don’t lowball yourself or assume that the publication can’t pay. Here is a quick guide, but please remember that there is no “standard” rate for written work. Ways to charge: ● Flat rate (per format or by print run—can be doubled for including print and e-rights, or larger print runs [over 10k cc], or multiple territories [World vs North America]): ○ New York Times articles: $380 per format ○ Any single Hemingway short story (print run irrelevant) in a book: $2,000. ○ MLK Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” in a book: $~500-$1500 depending print run and how the heavens are aligned that day. ○ Big-name poetry: ~$10/line or flat fees slightly lower than short stories ○ Haikus: $25-50 ● Per page per copy: Some publishers like John Wiley or Taylor & Francis charge a per-page-per-copy fee. These are inevitably the most expensive. So if you really want to gouge your licensor (and they have big enough pockets to pay), go 7-10c per page per copy. ● Most favored nation (I want what he’s getting): MFN is more common in the music industry so I’ll get quotes like this when I permission song lyrics. Basically it means that you want to be paid either X amount OR the highest amount that any other comparable contributor was paid for the same publication. Use sparingly if at all. ● Students: Student essays are actually in demand as examples for textbooks. Especially English and composition textbooks. If you are a student and they want to use your essay, you WILL be lowballed. They’ll offer you $50 or $100 which, as you can see above, is way below market. If you know your rates you can negotiate up! Print runs can range from a couple dozen (university copy centers making coursepacks) to fifty or a hundred thousand for a national edition. The larger the print run, the less practical a per page per copy fee. I do want you to get the best price possible for your work, but be aware that if your quoted charge is exorbitant, and you show that you’re not interested in negotiating, publishers may well cut your work out of their book and leave you with nothing at all. ● Freelance work-for-hire If you’re not just allowing reprints for finished work but actually writing work-for-hire then the price structure is a little different. You also won’t be able to retain the rights to your work, or get paid again if the publisher uses it in other books. This can be good if you’re freelancing for regular work, but you’re not going to get rich on it, by a longshot. Rates for work-for-hire: Most will be by the hour or by the article. By hour is better for longer jobs, by the article is better if you’re doing shorter jobs like writing quiz questions or exercises. ○ By article: depending on length. Full-length articles at least $100-200 (see flat rates above) ○ By hour: $20-$30 an hour on the low end ○ By word count: rare. (don’t ask for $10/word. Even Dickens didn’t get that kind of scratch. $1-2 a word is more likely, but I know most places prefer to pay in flat fees. Longer articles should pay more, just not counted by how many words longer.) If you’re taking on a freelance contract, make sure to include a minimum amount (this way you can’t get shafted if they simply stop assigning you work). Also be aware that you will likely not retain the rights to your work after you have written it. The publishing company will be able to reprint it in every edition of the textbook, online, in other books, you name it, without paying you again. This isn’t in your best interests, but it is unavoidable in doing freelance work. If you really have no clue how much to charge for your work, it’s not a terrible idea to ask the publisher what rates others have charged for similar length works and print runs. They might still lowball you, but you might be pleasantly surprised at their quote (and you can always negotiate from there). 3. If you have an agent Great! Make sure they are working for you. The second most frustrating thing in my job (and it’s only second to failure to negotiate because it doesn’t happen that often) is when I’m making a reprint request to an agency and they ignore my emails, or respond way after our publishing deadline, or fail to provide a W9 so I can cut the check. Agents aren’t just for selling your book to the publisher: they continue to represent your business interests while you’re in your unabomber shack writing novel #2-10. Make sure you’re getting royalty reports on a regular basis, at least once a year. 4. Don’t work for Free Redux As we’ve discussed above, working for free is bad, though not always avoidable in the low-profit world of literary journals. Here are some things NOT to do: ● Don't pay money to enter publication contests. Especially not “if you win, we'll publish your book” type contests. ● Do not pay an agency “reading fees” to look at your manuscript. Any reputable agent has more slushpile submissions than they know what to do with, and no dearth of interns to read them. The agent/writer relationship exists in order to make you both money. They should not be charging you for their attention; they should be excited about their clients’ work and the prospect of placing it with a good publishing house. ● Do not work for free for corporate publishers. If they’re Big Six, they can bloody well pay. Heck, if you’ve heard of them before, they can probably afford to pay. If they’re going to make a profit off your work, then they definitely need to pay. IV. General advice on copyright and ownership Here is a very good primer on copyright from the US Copyright Office, including a list of what is and isn’t copyrightable http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf And here is a list of FAQs about what copyright protects (apparently people call the US Copyright Office about their Elvis sightings?) http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html If you are a law student and/or a masochist, you can read the full text of US Copyright law here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ Below are a few bullet points we felt were important to share: ● If you wrote it, you own it. From the minute you created your work, you own the copyright on it. You don’t need to apply at the copyright office, you don’t need to get it notarized. (This is not a patent or a trademark we’re talking about here). You especially don’t need to do any bullshit like mailing it to yourself (a common myth: this is not a legally binding practice). If you are a minor, you can still claim copyright. In the U.S. this copyright currently lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Unless you transfer rights to someone else, it will belong to your or your estate long past the time when it can be of any use to you. ● If you own it you have the exclusive rights to (and to authorize other people to) do the following: - reproduce the work - prepare derivative works (adaptations) based upon the work - distribute copies of the work - perform the work publicly - display the work publicly ● If you own it, third parties have to ask you if they can use it. I know this doesn’t happen very often when it comes to the internet, but even if you’ve posted your content on the forums and your blog and your deviantart, willy nilly for all to see, companies still need to ASK PERMISSION to use your content. Profit or non-profit, it doesn’t matter. If you find some company/individual/pet shop/congressman using your work without having gotten permission, you have the right to ask them to take it down, properly credit you, or compensate you for its use. (Note that you don’t need a lawyer to ask. You might want a lawyer if they refuse.) This is where watermarks and credit lines are useful: you want to be able to show proof that you own the rights to this work. ● Credit lines A credit line appears on the content or in the crediting/© acknowledgement section of a project, and attributes the piece of work to the author/artist/photographer/etc . Examples include: ○ Reprinted courtesy of Defenestration. https://www.mywebsite.com ○ Copyright © 2011 by Defenestration [note again that you don’t need to do anything special like registering to claim copyright on your own work] ○ Reprinted by permission of the author. Defenestration is an honorable-mention-winning writer, and wants you to publish her book. [So true.] Your work should always be credited when it appears in third-party texts. This is how people know it belongs to you, and to come to you to ask permission for it in the future! ● Creative Commons licenses I would not advise Creative Commons licenses for writers, but they seem to make a lot more sense for programmers, and designers in certain contexts. There are different kinds of Creative Commons licenses. Using them does not mean you give up all your rights to your work. In all forms of Creative Commons licensing, the party reusing your work must credit you. Remember that crediting is key for self-promotion and contactability. You can look at the cc licenses and decide which if any is best for you here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ ● Fair Use (what it actually means) A lot of people have a lot of terrible to disingenuous ideas about what fair use is. Let us therefore quote from the US Code: “…Including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html So you can block quote a paragraph or two in the middle of your blog post/term paper/book review (properly cited of course), or quote a celebrity’s tweet in your gossip column, or draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa, that sort of thing. Fair use does not include “oh I am only using one line of this song, that’s cool.” It doesn’t include “well, I don’t have the money to pay for this, and I’m using it for a good cause.” It doesn’t include “well, everyone else on the internet is using it, so I can too!” It does not include “well, I’m not making very many copies, and my website doesn’t get a lot of visitors, and I’m not making a profit” and it definitely does not include “oh I’ll just use this, she’ll never find out.” Seriously, just stop stealing poo poo and make your own stuff. We’d like to reiterate part of that, since it is a big problem that drives us nuts when dealing with clients and editors: Just because it is on the internet doesn’t mean it is free. Teachers making copies for their class is “nonprofit educational purposes” until they start making those copies into coursepacks and selling them in the school bookstore. Then the content is no longer fair use and becomes permissionable material. See Basic Books v Kinko’s (1991). Really, once you start doing anything for-profit, all of your copyright compliance needs to become super tight. When you’re an individual, non- or not-for-profit, you should comply with copyright because it supports artists and to do otherwise is Really Dick and Still Illegal. ● Public Domain In the United States, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. After the copyright has expired, the work is considered “in the public domain,” at which point we are all free to use and republish it how we see fit without asking the author’s estate for permission. All Federal Government publications, including court cases and laws, are in the public domain. This is not necessarily true of state government documents (varies by the jurisdiction). Note that while many works of art are old enough to be in the public domain, photographs of those works of art are copyrighted, and belong to the photographer or agency. You might be asking: Why does copyright last for so goddamn long after it has ceased to be any benefit to the author, and exists only to line the pockets of spoiled heirs and multinational corporations? Mickey Mouse, that’s why. Term&MMCurve.gif) Conclusion: So concludes our presentation for you, citizens of Creative Convention, on the business of art, copyright, and getting paid what you’re worth for the work that you do. May you all use this information to become better businesspeople, and better able to make a living doing artistic work that you love. If anyone has questions, further resources, experience, or horror stories on this subject, please share! Defenestration fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Other resources The Graphics Artist Guild https://www.graphicartistsguild.org/ Kerfuffle posted:Def put up info about joining the Graphics Artist Guild. They'll have your back in legal situations. You also get a copy of the GAG Priceguide book with your membership. Books Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators*** ***Not a substitute for good legal representation. It's always best to have a lawyer look over your contracts and templates. But of course, sometimes that is not an option. Children's Authors (and illustrators) http://andyelkerton.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/finding-an-illustrator-for-your-book-step-one-dont/ Children's publishing is a strange beast, with a much higher slush to gems ratio. Most of what I know about it is rumors, so if anyone has any advice, feel free to share. Estimating Tax Payments for Freelancers by Josh Fruhlinger (the Comics Curmudgeon) http://thebillfold.com/2012/09/heres-a-surefire-tax-estimating-process-for-freelancers/ Rates for Editorial Work By the Editorial Freelancers Association http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php Freelance Writing Who Pays Writers? - "A place to list whether, and how much, magazines and websites pay their writers. We'll post 'em as you report 'em. Intended to be informational, not judgmental. " http://whopays.tumblr.com/ Money talks "How to find out what other writers are paid so you know how to set your own rates" Article by Ann Friedman (of editorrealtalk) http://www.cjr.org/realtalk/money_talk.php Freelance file and invoice management Already Bored posted:I was a freelance photographer for 8 years and probably made every mistake possible. I've lowballed on jobs, incorrectly invoiced clients, poorly communicated with them, been screwed over and lost money owed, not to mention the hours of time wasted chasing up late payments. Many of my freelancer friends and colleagues have gone through similar problems and I wanted to build a tool that would help ease the burden. Defenestration fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2012 04:09
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Found a more in-depth article about Fair Use. It's in the context of posting sports clips, but the fair use tests are still relevant. http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5391
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Apr 4, 2012 14:43
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I put up Kerfuffle's info on the Guild and that children's illustrator post. Thanks Kerfuffle! If you all have any more resources, post them here and I'll add them to the second post
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May 13, 2012 13:53
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GonzoRonin posted:How do I go about pitching college essays to a textbook publishing company? I've tried a few different searches and all I get for results are sketchy essay mills. Because if it's the latter, I've never heard of it being done that way (like a magazine pitch process). Either the professors who are authoring the book will have examples from their own classes/department that serve a particular pedagogy, or the publishing house will have freelancers write them.
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May 25, 2012 22:52
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GonzoRonin posted:The English department head at the school I just graduated from actually wrote/published his own English textbook using student essays as examples. I don't know if he or anyone else at the college is writing another one, but I thought it might be worth it to at least email the guy with a few examples of my work and ask, but I want to make sure I won't look like an amateur moron first. They'll probably be looking to update the textbook for a new edition (as teachers and publishing companies love to do), so don't worry about whether they're looking for essays or not. Be prepared with pieces in the department's pet genres: does every freshman comp class do a compare/contrast essay? An editorial? A research paper?
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May 26, 2012 06:03
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Found a neat video on why spec work is bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsstOs-K7gk Easy to understand for anyone
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Jun 28, 2012 04:24
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Authentic You posted:This is great. I especially like the comparisons to other industries. I'd really love to see it posted in SA-Mart or otherwise see SA-Mart raise awareness of the shittiness of design spec work. I've been trying to pick up small projects (since my job is going to poo poo), and I think, 'Hey, I could do a great website banner for that price so let me link my portfolio and.. oh, it's another loving contest..'
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Jun 30, 2012 02:41
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teepee posted:I'm sure this is a ridiculous question, but I've made my first sale and the publisher sent me a contract to sign over email. Everything looks good, but as I've never done this before, I was wondering if it's better to sign & send it back via email or to do it snail mail. (Publisher's okay with either.) The contract itself isn't the issue, I just get cross-eyed at the thought of sending my SSN over email, because I'm paranoid as gently caress. Anybody go through this before and want to hold my hand?
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Jul 19, 2012 14:19
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Josh Fruhlinger (the Comics Curmudgeon) wrote an article for freelancers about how to estimate tax payments http://thebillfold.com/2012/09/heres-a-surefire-tax-estimating-process-for-freelancers/ quote:Are you a freelancer? If so, your third-quarter taxes are due on September 17. Are you freaking out? Do you have a big bill, but aren’t sure where the money will come from? Do you have no real idea how much the payment should be? Adding it to the OP
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Sep 18, 2012 20:51
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Found a sweet chart of rates for editorial services Added to OP Rates for Editorial Work By the Editorial Freelancers Association http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php
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Oct 9, 2012 04:48
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Added a couple of new resources to the OP on Freelance Writing Who Pays Writers? - "A place to list whether, and how much, magazines and websites pay their writers. We'll post 'em as you report 'em. Intended to be informational, not judgmental. " http://whopays.tumblr.com/ Money talks "How to find out what other writers are paid so you know how to set your own rates" Article by Ann Friedman (of editorrealtalk) http://www.cjr.org/realtalk/money_talk.php quote:“I gotta say,” says Martin, who isn’t a freelancer and has no plans to quit her job to pursue writing full time, “y’all got some serious hustle.” Defenestration fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 22:45
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Dead Blue Sky posted:The OP was very informative, but I want to see if I understand copyrights and fair use correctly. Thus, companies like Disney and Lucasfilm have their characters copyrighted, and on a pretty severe lockdown. If they see that you are profiting from a mustache parody of Mickey Mouse, they will definitely sue your rear end. Depending on how much money you have to lawyer up (lol), and whether the court decides that your version is covered under fair use (heavily dependent on how similar your character is to the original and the intent of your version--to critique Disney, or to make profit?) then you MIGHT win. Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader are still under copyright (see: The Mickey Mouse curve), whereas Mona Lisa is not. Photographs others have taken of the Mona Lisa ARE still copyrighted to the owner though, so it's not just that any picture of the Mona Lisa is public domain. You can get away with a lot more, fair use wise, if you're not profiting
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Jan 23, 2013 16:38
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blinkeve1826 posted:I recently got in touch with a relative of a relative who is an intern for a major national print publication. They're interviewing people with rabbits for a special separate pet guide magazine, so I said I'd gladly let her interview me for the publication. I asked if she'd need photos, and she said she would need hi-res photos of rabbits, though she didn't think I could produce them myself, thinking (rightfully) that I'm not a photographer. I do have some hi-res photos of them though. I didn't start thinking about it until someone else mentioned it, but should I be charging this publication for pictures of my bunnies? My friend took them for fun and is not a professional photographer and lives in another country and might not even care, but even if she doesn't, should I be asking for money for her/us anyway? Would I be entitled to any of it, or would it be solely for the benefit of my friend? That would be 100% fine with me either way. To that end, should I be paid for the interview? I was fine doing it for free but now, thinking of how much they can make distributing this nationwide, I'm not sure what's appropriate and what's not. Since they're a national magazine it can't hurt to ask if they'll pay an honorarium for the usage. But again, since they're not your photos, it's up to your friend who took them whether she wants to press for compensation or not
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Feb 1, 2013 23:37
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RetroVirus posted:Thanks for this thread, the OP is great.
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Feb 5, 2013 16:12
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Authentic You posted:DA artists are just too easy to take advantage of and many of them would probably think $75 for use of their fantasy art on print book cover is totally awesome. Glad you got good compensation and had a good experience
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Feb 7, 2013 03:27
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Lyz posted:Hey all, I'm super new to the whole freelancing thing - so far my "freelancing" has been doing hourly work for my husband's LLC (formed with a good friend), which has been kind of a "we trust you to not over report your hours, go nuts" type deal. Probably not the best model for future freelancing, but on the plus side I got to basically design this company's brand from the ground up. Designers, any more specific advice?
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Feb 20, 2013 05:22
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Random House's Hydra imprint gives a great example of what contract NOT TO SIGN, EVER, HOLY poo poo THIS IS BAD http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/note-to-sff-writers-random-houses-hydra-imprint-has-appallingly-bad-contract-terms/ quote:Note to SF/F Writers: Random House’s Hydra Imprint Has Appallingly Bad Contract Terms There's a lot more in Scalzi's article, but the main takeaway is this: A publishing contract is supposed to be an agreement for MUTUAL benefit between both parties. If a place like Random House won't pay, or assume any of the standard risk (while making billions of $$ in profits) then they are scamming and abusing you. Do not enter into agreements where publishers pay nothing and you pay for their publishing "services."
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Mar 7, 2013 17:40
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GiveUpNed posted:Hey guys. She has asked me to send her an invoice for a deposit. They used SignNow to prepare my NDA and Contractor Agreement. How do I go about invoicing her a deposit and how much should it be? Invoicing is really simple. It can just be a word document with everyone's name and address, the list of the work done and the payment due. Google up freelance writing invoice and you'll get a ton of easy templates to work from. They should be able to cut you a check and send it to your address.
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May 16, 2013 13:46
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GiveUpNed posted:I'm on the other side of the country from her. Will she have to mail the cheque to me, or can it be a wire transfer, or somehow electronically done?  Does mail not go from one side of your country to another?Wire transfers are a thing that people do but speaking from experience they are nasty to set up for the person sending them, and also cost money. Just ask her what your options are.
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May 17, 2013 03:27
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SVU Fan, I also recommend that you call them. Even if you have to sit up until 3am, get a real person on the phone, because it is much easier to ignore emails. Ask for specific details. Who is in charge of sending the payment? What is their phone number/email? Who is their supervisor? Emphasize how overdue it is, that you need to be paid right away, and how you have a contract that stipulates x. Repeat your payment details to everyone. Say that you will keep calling to make sure it is done. The goal is to make it unpleasant for the individual whose job it is to continue to not pay you. Assuming this isn't some fly-by-night outfit, there is a significant chance this is an exercise in abject bureaucracy instead of outright sleaziness.
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Oct 25, 2013 16:28
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SVU Fan posted:Thanks for the replies so far guys, super helpful. I ended up writing a slightly mean, albeit true email giving a timeline of our emails, and I think it really put into perspective how long payments been delayed. I also put a "I'm going to need the payment in the next 24 business hours, or I'll have to take this further" spiel at the end. Remember the words of Eugene McCarthy: "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency"
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Oct 26, 2013 15:38
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SVU Fan posted:So as of right now, I got a reply saying I should get the payment by Saturday, after the PayPal processed with their bank. I still haven't gotten it unfortunately, so I am going to send one final email here.
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Oct 28, 2013 12:40
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Inverse Icarus posted:You know how much you don't want to call them? Truth bombs. Think of your Jewish grandmother. What would she do? (demand satisfaction) (This works for me.)
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Oct 28, 2013 21:01
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Rogetz posted:Image Rights question: You're right, you grant her marketing and promotional use and keep the rest. If you want to be specific about it you can forbid sub licensing or license transfer. Don't give her the un watermarked ones until she pays.
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Nov 24, 2013 08:48
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Looking for information about licensing out video clips to production companies. Post or PM me if you have info about rates Thanks!
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Dec 13, 2013 19:14
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Chitin posted:Directly, or are you talking about selling stock via a service? Directly. Someone asked for my advice, and I only buy videos occasionally.
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Dec 17, 2013 14:25
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You can google "voice over sample contract" if you want some basic templates. Please do make them pay 5-10x your regular rate as a dickhead tax.
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Jan 5, 2014 05:13
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Psych posted:I got this e-mail out of the blue today and I'm hoping you guys can tell me the sort of stuff I need to know before going forward. A very specific accounting of the scope of the project. A timeline for completion, including a set number of revisions (and more than that costs them extra). A cancellation fee clause. A phone number.
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Jan 10, 2014 06:17
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AnnoyBot posted:I have an outfit that makes cable animal documentaries wanting to license a video I posted to Youtube. They have sent me a contract specifying "non-exclusive right in perpetuity to broadcast all or part of the material in connection with the production, exploitation, promotion and/or advertising of the program throughout the world for the entire period of copyright in the material and all extensions and renewals thereof by all means and in all media". They are offering $100 if they use it, $1 if they take it and don't use it. Footage is from a Flip HD. First off, if you give them the footage files they pay the full fee. End of story. If they decide not to use it, they can decide not to license from you. It does sound like it's for a specific program they are producing, which is good, and the license should be limited to that program and the advertising/promotion thereof. Don't let them put your footage in a vault for unlimited company use. Don't let them sublicense (obviously) or merchandise with it. Put a 5 or 10 year term on it, that should more than cover whatever dipshit documentary they're making without being a hassle to renew. All mediums is a lot to ask, and yet another reason they should pay you more. World territory is not unreasonable but again, they should pay more. How long is this video? 1 minute? If I'm spitballing, I say quote them $500, settle for $300 (with the changes mentioned above). More if it's longer. You can charge them per second if you want. This makes it seem like a deal if they're only using a few seconds of the whole video. Of course they have to specify how many seconds they want.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:14
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mutata posted:A friend of mine got $15,000 from a company in South America for a non-exclusive license to use in a commercial a video she posted on Youtube of her daughter freaking out about a surprise gift, so I'd say you're getting the radical screw job. I mean, maybe $15k is much too much for your nature clip (compared to personal footage of someone's child), but $100 seems laughably low.
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Mar 19, 2014 03:30
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Pompous rhombus, whatever you do charge him by the hour.
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Oct 1, 2014 00:08
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SteveVizsla posted:First: The Copyright Myths link no longer works For the bulk art site, do the formal process for reporting copyright infringement http://fineartamerica.com/termsofuse.html For the Etsy woman, the formal process is here https://www.etsy.com/help/article/482/ Though you may decide it is easier to send a message to the seller saying you own the copyright to the work she copied, and request that she stop selling that item immediately, or offer to license the rights to her for a fair price. If you've sold the picture as stock, check your agreement with the stock agency, as it might affect what your rights are to claim against this photo. New myths link, looks like it's signup required now. https://graphicartistsguild.org/tools_resources/copyright-myths PS Nice rabbit looking dog. I was worried it would be that one that looks like a mop
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Oct 30, 2014 05:44
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Bad Milk posted:Hello everyone, I'm a Spanish artist who's been working freelance in Spain If your Spanish clients won't sign contracts, perhaps you can call them "letters of agreement." Not a lawyer, don't know what's enforceable over there, but at least you'll have a clear set of expectations on paper that you can put in their face when they try to change the deal. Try also to collect as much of the fee up front as you can: here it's not uncommon to have part of the fee come when you sign the contract, then the rest at milestones along the way, with the final payment upon delivery.
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Nov 17, 2014 03:47
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John Liver posted:Any idiot can type up a document, and many idiots do. God bless the slush pile
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Feb 14, 2015 02:50
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Already Bored posted:I was a freelance photographer for 8 years and probably made every mistake possible. I've lowballed on jobs, incorrectly invoiced clients, poorly communicated with them, been screwed over and lost money owed, not to mention the hours of time wasted chasing up late payments. Many of my freelancer friends and colleagues have gone through similar problems and I wanted to build a tool that would help ease the burden.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:45
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Arthil posted:Compensation will be done entirely through a residual payment, with each product being sold for $15-$19 dollars I would receive $1 per sale up to a cap of $100 per design. Other people have said it but this is a terrible deal. If it's capped at $100 he should just be paying you $100 per design up front, and even that is low if you think about it hourly. I'd also like to point out that those local teams will likely have IP that you need to acquire like logos which will add to your time and costs.
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Apr 14, 2015 03:01
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SuBeCo posted:I have unfortunately developed a reputation for giving a thorough and insightful critique. As such, I've had a rash of people lately asking me to "just take a quick look at the opening of their novel/screenplay/short story/comic book script" - which of course ends up becoming a good bit of time spent commenting and critiquing. As the sparklee in the OP says, always have a contract. Even if it's just a single pager being like "here's what I'll do, here is my rate, here is the estimate."
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Jun 11, 2015 21:47
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BreakingDolphins posted:So i'm currently in discussion with a festival that want's an after movie shot but I have no clue what to charge them. It's a 2 day techno/music festival (about 12 hour's a day) and the after movie will be around 2-4 minutes, they provide unlimited free drinks, beer and food. It's a pretty popular festival with about 10,000 visitors and every year it sells-out within 15 minutes. I have never commissioned video personally but I'd expect more like the 2-5k range. Think about the hours you'd spend shooting and editing, then multiply by your hourly rate. You likely won't have time to take advantage of those free drinks fwiw
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Jun 22, 2015 20:00
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Congratulations! Figure out how many hours you will be spending on this work, and multiply by what you think your hourly wage should be. Remember to get a contract!
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Nov 21, 2015 16:58
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