Client demanding removal of work on Folio
Out of context: Reply #8
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- shellie0
I've been on the client side of this argument before. Footage ended up in a reel for a killed project because it looked terrible and misrepresented the artist it was for -- the artist hated everything about it. The director was actually fired however he WAS paid. Nonetheless we own the footage used or unused. We never approved public release and I can burry it if i want to. The director was served a cease and desist and he complied before the video could be copied or spread. I don't care if he shows it privately, but I have a big problem if it shows up online and I'd shut it down again, with damages, if I ever noticed it popping back up in whole or in part.
It's not just my opinion that if they pay for it, they own it. You didn't sell them a license to use your work, you sold them THE work as a whole as a gun for hire with unlimited use for an unlimited amount of time. It's their right to exercise that even if you think it's a dickwad move. One of the reasons movie studios do this with contractor is they literally don't want to expose their vendors or the employees of their vendors to competition. They want everything to appear as an in house job to the general public. there are hundreds of artists hands that touch a movie campaign on the marketing backend that you'll never know about. Agencies that display big projects publicly are usually the agency on record and have negotiated that upfront but those rights do not extend to the employees or 3rd party vendors of the agency. You've got to be a little more chill about how you display the work of paying customers. Even moreso if you're actually an employee of a vendor and the client isn't yours directly.
Your situation doesn't sound as serious but it's basically the same general problem. id say if you pick up a small client simply adding a version of the following line will avoid this problem as they'd probably sign it at the top of the project:
"Upon final approval and launch _______ has the right to show this work in whole or in part as completed work in a public portfolio."
With that theres no problem SEO or not.
- That line is broad enough where if signed in a SOW you could copy their entire site on ur server & they couldn't stop u. Although prob should password that tbh.shellie