Private Commissions

[taasla.livejournal.com]

Hi artists_beware!

I'm coming in to ask how you some of you guys handle private commissions. Do you charge anything to keep a commission private?

I've been approached to keep a commission private, and I agreed to it because nothing in my TOS covers that. I'm a little bummed because full color pieces always tend to bring in a good number of potential customers. I'd like to add a clause in my TOS for private commissions for the future, but I don't know what to do with them, or what an acceptable fee for keeping a commission private is. (If charging one is acceptable at all.)

Edit: To be more clear, the person in question does not want me to post it to my gallery when I am done. I am not handing over my rights to them.

Comments

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

do you mean work-for-hire? that's where the person commissioning the piece owns the copyright and all the rights to that piece and can reproduce it if they want. People generally charge an order of magnitude more for this kind of sword, if your base price was $50, you would charge $500+ for work for hire

If you mean something else, then I have no idea

[film2edit.livejournal.com]

I've never charged extra for that. Mainly you are being contracted for a project, and then it is turned over to the person who contracted the work.

I treat it as intellectual property. Although the artist created the work, the owner is the owner.

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

Only if it's work for hire. With normal commissions, the artist actually owns the piece and can make reproductions, sell prints and use it in their portfolio. The commissioner does not own the RIGHTS to the picture, just the piece itself. As I said, work for hire rates should start at several hundreds of dollars, not tens

[taasla.livejournal.com]

No, I'm sorry for not being specific. It is a regular commission, but they do not want me to post it anywhere.

[neolucky.livejournal.com]

I generally listen when my customers ask. Some people DO charge to keep things private however, like a %5 percentage or something. It's just good business to keep it private when requested to.

[chronidu.livejournal.com]

I do typically charge for private ones, simply because it means I cannot upload the work I have done. It also means I can't have it as advertisement for further commissions, and to show I'm doing commission work in general.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would never dream of going against a client's wishes. Nor would I mind if it was something as small as a simple sketch. 5% sounds good. It's not some insane tag on top of a commission price.

[weirdmisty.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't charge extra at all for a private commission, personally.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

If you can't post it anywhere, then what rights do you have left? You can't make prints, you can't do anything with it. You might as well hand over the rights, really.

I suppose it's just weighing what the loss in advertisement is worth, vs. the happiness of the customer in question. But I'm not sure I'd accept such a commission at all, myself. Just doesn't seem worth it. Not without doing the whole work-for-hire bit and getting paid accordingly, anyhow.

[isilbastet.livejournal.com]

I've done quite a few private commissions, and it may lose you business from outside sources, but it often gains you business from word-of-mouth. Personally I believe that as long as they ask me beforehand so I know what I'm getting into, there's nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't charge at all.

[kriscynical.livejournal.com]

I was burned before when I was fresh out of college in a similar way. I was doing an elaborate piece for this lady with three figures in elaborate clothing with color. She waited until right before I was finished to tell me "oh by the way you can never post this anywhere forever because I said so". There has been a clause in my ToS about that ever since.

If a client wants me to keep the commission a secret until a certain date because it's a gift, that's absolutely no problem and it doesn't cost them anything. I have a clause in my ToS that specifically tells clients to inform me of such things, though. I once publicly worked on a job over LiveStream and the client flipped out on me for doing so even though it wasn't a gift and they never told me to keep it under wraps until completion. Another instance of live and learn revise your ToS.

If the client wants me to keep the commission private until the end of time, they'll have to buy the rights to it from me because I also have a ToS clause that states I reserve the right to use the image for self-promotional purposes "unless otherwise negotiated" = you pay me not to use it. Most of the commissions I do for individuals wouldn't interest anyone other than the client, but if someone asks to purchase a print of it I always contact the client and ask them if it's okay for me to sell a print of the piece. Technically I have the right to do so, but I ask because it's good form.

If a client wants to buy the rights to an image to the point of you completely handing over the copyright, it's called a buy-out and it can be anywhere from 100%-500% of the original cost of the piece. Usage rights can also be purchased for a certain amount of time (one year from date of final payment, etc.) if laid out in an official agreement to keep things simple if problems arise.

Re: your edit... if you cannot post the image publicly in order to promote yourself, you have handed over some of your rights to the image. A client can't tell you what you can and can't do with an image unless they pay you accordingly.

Edited to apologize for the novella. Sorry. :x

[kriscynical.livejournal.com]

Oosh, you shouldn't do that unless they purchase the rights to the image from you. You have been contracted for the project, and that contract should include whether or not any rights have been transferred upon completion.

To my understanding I think you have the intellectual property concept backwards. The character is the client's intellectual property, but you are the copyright owner of the image you created. If the client wants the copyright, they must purchase it from you.

[saeto15.livejournal.com]

I would never agree to this without being compensated. It's an unreasonable demand, especially when most of the time people aren't getting reasonable rates for their art in the first place. It shouldn't be something they can expect without buying the rights.

What you can do, if you do want to offer it, is have a contract stating how long the piece will be kept private. After x amount of time you can post it in your gallery, etc. But include a fee to make it worthwhile to yourself.

[saeto15.livejournal.com]

You have to be reasonable when it comes to the client, though. Know exactly what they are and aren't entitled to. A lot of people commissioning art in this fandom demand a lot of unreasonable things, because more than half of the people doing art are only hobbyists and will never do art professionally. They don't know their rights, so they let people walk all over them, and the cycle continues.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

No, the novella is definitely appreciated! As what with bladespark said above, I never thought of it that way.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I've never taken one but I think I'd significantly charge for that since the client is basically asking me to give up a right to the image.

[delphinios.livejournal.com]

There are a number of different approaches for this topic, depending on your situation.

1) From a Business perspective:

You can offer to sell them full rights to the item for a fee. You'll need to have a written contract, as you're effectively signing over your copyright to the art to them.

Also, be careful about charging an additional fee to keep the work private. This could be construed as a verbal contract as you're implying that you are giving up your right of redistribution to the commissioner in exchange for the higher price. Don't charge more unless you have a clear agreement on this matter agreed to by both parties.

2) As a Courtesy: This is anectdata, so treat it appropriately as obviously I can't back this up with real names. Anyways, a friend of mine has commissioned a somewhat well known artist in the fandom several times over the course of the past 3 years, because the artist has agreed to keep the commissions private without charging anything extra. He's gotten several hundred dollars in sales that he otherwise wouldn't have had.. much more then he likely would have earned selling prints or putting the work in a portfolio.

And more importantly, the artist has a loyal repeat customer because of this. Now, the Artist could say "screw you" and post all the 'private' art as the agreement was courtesy and not contract. But if he did so, he would lose this repeat business and ruin a very good reputation with my friend.

The value of this simple courtesy far outweighs the losses incurred by not displaying the art publicly.

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

IAWTC!

[ellonwye.livejournal.com]

Remember that if you make this commission private you are losing any potential requests for prints from other people. You're also losing any potential customers who see that particular work and choose you as their artist based on your work on that picture.

You can agree to not post it in public galleries like FA or dA if you want, but I wouldn't agree to not ever putting it online at all. You have absolutely every right to put it in your portfolio etc, and if they don't want you to do even that then they need to buy the rights to the image.

My 2 cents!

[saeto15.livejournal.com]

That's a great icon. :D

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

Thankya. |3 I own this pin in real life. I wore it on my bookbag everywhere until the backing broke!

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

Totally! Artists claims no ownership of character -- regardless, image rights DEFAULT to artist, and by law at that! Image rights on ALL counts, redistribution, printmaking, etc. can only be relinquished to the client through explicit negotiation, and ideally, with recompense!

[genet.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, but I also think a lot of artists rush to protect themselves and the customers end up feeling... I'm not sure how to describe it, but the end result is they feel a bit like the artist is up front accusing them of trying to take advantage, if that makes sense?

There's a balance in there, and it's really hard to reach, I think. :/


To the OP, if it were ME, I wouldn't worry about one commissioner once in a requesting their piece be unlisted (although I would ask if it would be okay if you posted it later; perhaps it's a gift, or if they don't want people to know it's their character, if it can be anonymized in any way in the description).

The 5% upcharge for privacy seems reasonable to me. Good luck. :)

[genet.livejournal.com]

This. :D

Someone posted below about a commissioner changing the terms after the commission has been agreed upon, and that... I'd have issues with, but as long as everything is up front... :)

Half of my business is from word of mouth. :)

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

On the other hand a lot of people do try to take advantage of artists, add in that a lot of people are remarkably ill-informed about their rights and often you have people feeling hard done by because some artist didn't grant a mythical right they wrongly felt they should have.