Contracts 101 - Resource Guide for Artists

[Dimilison]

I read all 4 articles. Thank you very much for sharing this here.

[aeshnidae]

I read all 4 articles. Thank you very much for sharing this here.

You're very welcome! I'm glad these are useful resources.

[Truelight]

Any good templates for someone who wants to commission a mapmaker?
And they want to make sure that after they commission the map, they will own the sole rights to publish, sell, and use the map however they want?

[aeshnidae]

Any good templates for someone who wants to commission a mapmaker?
And they want to make sure that after they commission the map, they will own the sole rights to publish, sell, and use the map however they want?

Hi Truelight! For some reason I didn't get a notification about a new post here, hence my serious delay in responding! Check out the posts in this thread that I listed below. They discuss various license grants and contract language for them. You want the mapmaker to assign copyright to you, rather than license it, so the language would be along the lines of "Mapmaker agrees to assign and hereby does assign all copyrights in the Finished Work to Client." I do recommend giving the mapmaker a non-exclusive license to use the map as part of their portfolio, since that's pretty standard and won't interfere with your use of the map.

​04-27-2018, 05:17 PM, Commercial v. Non-commercial License, Use Limitations
02-19-2018, 08:38 PM, Section 10, Ownership and Licensing
04-29-2018, 10:13 AM, Copyright License Agreement​ (provides contract language for various types of licenses)​

[aeshnidae]

It's definitely a long read! I figured I'd put it all out there and people can review it (and search for keywords) as needed.

[Ilanthar]

Thanks a lot for doing this!

[aeshnidae]

Thanks a lot for doing this!

You're welcome! I get pretty steamed when I see artists getting ripped off, and I see it a lot. I'm hoping this will help Guild members avoid some of the more common problems.

[LizardInk]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this post!! It's been an invaluable resource to me as I put together my contract. I know this must have taken quite a lot of time and energy to put together, and I'm really, truly grateful.

[aeshnidae]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this post!! It's been an invaluable resource to me as I put together my contract. I know this must have taken quite a lot of time and energy to put together, and I'm really, truly grateful.

You're very welcome! This stuff is second nature to me, because I've been a practicing contracts/IP attorney for many years now. I've seen enough companies take advantage of artists that I wanted to provide some sort of guidance for everyone here. I would love to offer to draft and review contracts, and advise on breach of contracts, for all Guild members pro bono, but I'm only licensed in Maryland and DC and states are very strict about attorney licensing. But I'm always willing to offer general guidance (as opposed to specific legal advice).

I realized I forgot to post a demand letter for payment, so I'll do that soon.

[Jaxilon]

I realized I forgot to post a demand letter for payment, so I'll do that soon.

Wait, this isn't free advice? I better stop reading now

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain all this. This is one of those areas that keeps coming up year after year because well, I think as artists it's not typically in most of our natures to be so mercenary. Until we've been burned a couple times.

I'm thinking we may want to move this information to the "Tutorials/How-To" section but we might want to get the document issue worked out first.

Have some rep for your efforts as well.