This week has seen the topic of copyright come under discussion with clients and colleagues. And what has been common amongst them is the lack of understanding around the issue.

Copyright ownership has the potential to derail years of work on building your business’ creative identity. If you decide to take your business to another design studio, or have someone else modify existing designs for another project, you may find that you can not freely do so without the agreement of the copyright owner – and that may not be you!

When something is created the ownership of that creation is automatically bestowed on the creator (unless they are an employee).

If I, as an employee of a design studio, create a design, such as logo, for you as our client, the design studio will own the copyright to that design unless you have contracted with them otherwise (and I suggest you do).

For many years NZ designers and their clients have been unaware of this, or have decided it was in the best interests of their business and client relationships not to enforce it. This is changing – more and more designers are now enforcing their creative rights. Some have been known to use copyright as another way to make money from their clients, or at worst as a tool to stop them from moving to another design studio.

Morally and ethically I believe a client should be free to use their own creative identity whenever and however they wish, so long as they are fully paid up with their designer. But legally that is not necessarily the case.

If you are unsure who owns the copyright to the designs created for your company, you need to check the terms and conditions from your design company to see what it says about copyright ownership. If you find that that owner is not you, ask your design studio how much it will cost to own the copyright outright. Any design company that is interested in retaining their relationship with their client or seeing that they don’t leave under a cloud, needs to be reasonable when it comes to setting a figure.

You may of course choose to do nothing but you will risk restrictions on the use of your design work should copyright be enforced – a very expensive exercise usually involving lawyers.

For more information on protecting your brand read the Hot Gossip article “Protecting your brand” by IP expert Dan Winfield.

Posted on May 11th, 2008 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: Marketing