Without going into much detail, I got surprised by another commission opportunity. It would be a scene ala Gary Larson (a style I’ve drawn in and am familiar with).
I don’t know for sure, but I think my potential customer may want to sell the drawing herself as posters. I know that commissions for commercial use are a thing, but how do I go about it? I’m going to be texting her sometime today, and visiting later next week, and would love some advice. Please help!
It depends on how many people would buy the product you got commissioned for.
You can take a % of the revenue based on how many people purchase a product, over years. Say 35% over 1 year and 25% for every year after that.
Alternatively you can offer a higher upfront cost, say, 2x or 3x more your usual commission price.
Taking a percentage over a couple years might be more profitable, but you have to negotiate that percentage and also estimate how much it would sell based on prior products this person sold.
Also you would have to consider for how long the commercial license is granted.
You could grant a license in perpetuity (and charge accordingly), grant a license as long as the product is being sold, or for a fixed amount of years.
You’d probably need to draft some kind of contact for this however.
And if you have to draft a contract, be as verbose as possible. The contract should cover everything in as much detail as possible.
The most important thing to research is probably the licensing and how the contract should be structured.
The contract at the minimum should mention how you are getting paid, how long for if over time, for how much, how often (like every 3 months), what kind of license you are granting (commercial use), for how long, if it’s an exclusive license etc.
Details of the work you provided is also probably a good thing to put in the contract, like you provided a painting of a mountain in a digital format or somesuch, as asked by the client, along any deadlines if any.
As for the license, you should ask if they want commercial use or exclusive rights (total ownership), and change your pricing accordingly. Exclusive rights comes with some caveats, because you are essentially selling the ownership of your piece to them, and they can do whatever they want with it at that point.
A simple clause you can add to the exclusive rights is that you retain the ability to display the piece in your portfolio if you wish to do so.
It’s a lot of legalese to go through, so it might be worthwhile to talk to a lawyer or legal expert in these matters, and it’s important to have a signed contract for guarantees on both the client and artist side.
The contract should also include what image can or can’t be used for, if you’re not sell all your rights. For example you allow reprints as posters but not on shirts or mugs. Depending on the country you live in there are perhaps some strings attached too, there’s no global copyright law.
Thank you all so much!
How can I ensure something won’t be used commercially without my permission? When I give someone something commercially, do I give them the raw file as well?
It depends on the contract, if it doesn’t include the raw file then not. And how raw file is defined is an issue in itself. Does it include the kra file with all steps you did as layers, perhaps just a few layers separated (like characters or the background). I once got a “raw file” and it was just a single jpg someone saved into a psd
I think you see why people get help of lawyers to set up these contracts.
I don’t know anything about it but I would make sure I keep my exklusive rights. And make sure you get someone who actually has an idea about copyright and media stuff.
Personally I’m more used to the buying party listing what rights they want/need and you can either accept it or not (or perhaps offer an adjustment). It’s generally hard to set up a contract without knowing what the other party actually wants to do with it because normally you would want to give only the minimal permissions needed and keep as much rights as you can. Perhaps you even want to limit the time for how long the picture can be used.
It really depends on how and what you want to get paid. Normally the more rights you give away, the more money you can demand. However you can end up in a position were you can’t use your own artwork anymore for anything.
