Selling Copyright?

[vibris-sae.livejournal.com]

I was recently commissioned to design a logo for a roller derby team. However, I have been asked to sell the copyright. I don't mind doing so, but I am pretty naive about this sort of thing.

The team is pretty amateur, but they plan on merchandising with t-shirts. The commission fee is $100. What should I charge for the rights?

Thanks a_b!

Comments

[sigilgoat.livejournal.com]

Personally I'd ask for another 1-200$ depending on how you feel about it.

Though someone here might have a better suggestion for sure!

[film2edit.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine is a copyright lawyer. What email address may I contact you at?

[rmoorcat.livejournal.com]

what they are asking for is the "assigned" rights, as opposed to the "licensed" rights....I posted a big thing on a copyright class I went to...post is public.

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

depends I guess on how you feel and what they want to do with it, like say maybe selling their team shirts to supporters etc. Would def take film2edit up on the offer on getting advice from a lawyer.

[fenmere.livejournal.com]

Most of the other posters have it right so far. When someone buys a logo, in order to use it the way a business needs to use it, they need to have all the rights to the logo. So, this is not an unusual request.

If you get ahold of any old copy of the Graphic Designer's Guild handbook, you'll see that the industry holds these rights as worth quite a bit more than the usual license or copy of the artwork.

However, a roller derby team usually doesn't have a lot of income, nor a lot of promise of income. They are like any other community sports team that way. If you ask for more money, I suggest putting it like this:

If you cannot do the job for anything less, say, "I would love to do this job for you, but I cannot create a logo for less than $N." And then you can explain how much the rights are worth.

If you're OK with the offered price, but would like to push for more, say, "I can do this logo for you, but I would very much like to have $N for it if possible."

$100-$300 is probably within their range, but you never know. However, if you ever do a logo for a real business, charge no less than $2,500. Seriously. These guys will be easy compared to any other kind of business.

[epiceternity.livejournal.com]

I also agree with everyone here, Fenmere has already covered most of it. An additional 100%-200%+ is normal for full copyright/moral rights, though the pricing varies according to use, area and duration, so $100 for the artwork and $100-$200 for copyright is reasonable.

(Another way of looking at it is if your handing over full copyright/ moral right forever, you're giving up your right to use the image so you no longer can make further profit from it. So this is form of compensation, hence why it tends to be a lot of money. ^^)

[iggy-fur.livejournal.com]

I'd say everyone's pretty much got this right. It's not dealing with some massive corporation where these 'full rights' would carry quite a hefty sum. I would imagine $100-300 based on your feelings about it. I suppose just know what you feel your time is worth, what the end product is worth, and just know you're not going to be able to charge them further for your work.