ToS Help?

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm working on rewriting my Terms of Service, since it was really vague and sparse before. Could anyone give me some advice about how I can improve on what I have? I would appreciate some help, I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff. Thank you! :D

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Comments

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

You may want to clarify that is a deadline is missed because of a nonresponsive customer, you will not refund a rush fee. YOUR fault, refund. They don't check their email for two weeks, no refund.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll do that. :)

[marus-puppy.livejournal.com]

I like your TOS! Especially how you define what constitutes a major and minor edit, since a lot of people don't know what falls where.

The one thing I question is your section about paying for the service, not the rights. Do you do traditional artwork? And if so, do you ship out the final product? My understanding is that once you give the product to the customer, that picture belongs to them so (as the usual analogy goes) they can rip it up, set it on fire, or whatever they want to it, including reselling it. I don't know if this also applies to digital work, though, which is why I ask.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

I currently don't offer traditional art, just digital. I thought that, either way, it's common practice that the buyer can't resell work?

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm aware, if it's traditional art, they can resell the original. But they can't do things like make prints or use it as a logo or license it for use somewhere else.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

Alright, thanks for that information. :) I'll have to consider that in the future.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Digital, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame. Since there's no "original", the commissioner doesn't exactly own anything. You are very clear on the fuzzy points of digital stuff, (can they re-post, print it, etc.) so that's excellent.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) And thanks for your comments above too. I was worried that getting into the different kinds of edits was too nitpicky, aha.

[marus-puppy.livejournal.com]

I think for the most part, people don't resell work of their characters because then why would they have bought it in the first place? But since it's digital, it's like kerstin said and you've got your bases covered. :)

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Oh, so long as they're not selling prints, they can do with original art what they chose. You do digital art, so this doesn't really stand. :)

[ocelotish]

Overall I think it's quite good. I'm not sure about the fees to resell as it's a digitial piece, so what would they be selling? If it were a traditional piece, I don't think you could make them give you a fee to resell.

You should probably add something about edits/coloring. Can they change anything about it? Can they ask you to? Can they have someone else color it/color it themselves?

The one thing that would bother me is that if I commission you to do a full 2 person piece, well, the half-done lineart might not be worth anything to me. If I'm the one that cancels, well, that's my problem, but it would suck to have you cancel on me out of the blue and be stuck with less money and some art I can't use.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

I'm using this ToS for several websites I do commissions on, which basically does a lot of recolours and stuff. The fee is there basically for that website, so I can theoretically charge more if someone was doing a bunch of recolours and selling them on my lines. I don't do traditional art.

I'll consider the editting thing more. I usually judge by the piece but I should probably have a more set system, aha.

In that case I would probably just give you the sketch and refund for lineart and up. Should I mention something like that? I don't usually take long to finish things and rarely leave it at a half stage if I walk away so I didn't think of things like this.

[ocelotish]

Ah, sorry, it might be different then.

You can just say something like "proposals to edit the art must be emailed to me first" where you can either do them (for a small fee), or give the person permission to do the edits themselves or have another artist do them.

Well, you already say in the TOS that I'll still pay for whatever you have done if you cancel, but my point was that the sketch might not be worth anything to me. Like if I were hiring you to make a wedding cake, the uniced cake isn't useful to me, even though you certainly did work on it. I mean, there's not an easy solution, but it is something to consider.

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

Ah okay, sorry, I see what you're saying now. Yeah, I'll have to figure that out. Thanks!

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could think of it as dependent on WHY you had to cancel. Cancelling because of a family emergency would be different to cancelling because the customer is driving you up the wall with incessant emails and trying to change things around ten or eleven times a day.

[ocelotish]

No need to apologize! You're here for feedback and figuring out what you might have missed! :)

keaalu pretty much hit the nail on the head; it's dependant on the reason. If the customer is making your life miserable to the point where you have to cancel, they shouldn't get a full refund. You could phrase it a few different ways: something like "Continuing inappropraite behavior will be treated as the customer cancelling the commission," or "The artist canceling the commission for outside reasons will result in a full refund." You could even keep it vague and say something like "Artist cancellations will be handled on a case-by-case basis, but the refund will never be less than described above."

[suzeyy.livejournal.com]

I think I'll go with that last option, I like it best. Thank you!