Sunday Mailbag- Copyrights?

Q: I’ve read that your work for MAD is owned by MAD and they can reprint it anytime they want with no further payment to you. Is that typical, or do you have a different arrangement for other freelance jobs?

A: When I do an illustration for a client, who owns the copyrights of that image depends on the agreement I have with that client. Sometimes they own the copyright in perpetuity, sometimes they are only getting the copyright for a single use with limitations such as time, market, etc. It’s important to make sure the copyright arrangement is clearly spelled out IN WRITING and agreed to by all parties, so there are no misunderstandings later.

With regards to copyright of any piece of work, it’s important to understand exactly what the client is really buying from you. One would assume a client is commissioning and buying a piece of art from an illustrator to use for whatever they intend to use it for. That’s true but the artwork is not really what the client is paying for. What they are buying is the RIGHTS to use that artwork for their stated purpose, whether that is to illustrate a magazine article, as the cover of a book, for an advertisement, whatever. The fact that the illustrator has to create that image is almost incidental. It’s really the copyrights they are buying. There are different kinds of copyright arrangements they might be purchasing:

One Time Copyright Use: This is a typical arrangement for most illustration jobs used in print like a magazine feature, newspaper article, or some other kind of publication or media. The client wants an image to accompany some story or feature, and it will appear in a single issue of that publication. The rights you grant in your agreement is one time use in a single issue. These days there is usually also digital rights to use it on a website in conjunction with a digital version of the same feature/article. In this case the artist retains all other copyrights to the image. That means the artist could use the same image for other purposes, even reselling the copyrights to another client.

Long Term Copyright Use: This is an arrangement you might have if you did illustrations for a book, some kind of film/movie/video project, or some other media that could potentially have long term use/sales potential with multiple reprints. Your payment arrangement could be an upfront payment with a royalty agreement based on the sales of the item featuring the illustrations, or you could take a larger upfront payment and grant long term use without further payments. In this case there are often some limiting factors like time of use, number of reprints, or even geographic use (North American rights only , for example).

Full Copyrights: This is where the artist signs away all rights to the art. This might be an arrangement when doing illustrations for a product line or some brand, or for a book or other project the client wants full rights to do with as they wish. Maybe you are doing the art for a movie poster or play that they plan on making multiple products from. This is the most expensive rights for a client to buy, because the artist has no rights after the images are purchased. I don’t do this very often but have occasionally when a client wants me to do the art for a product line and then wants me to take a small payment upfront and a percentage of future sales, and when I have no confidence in the sales of said product or the client’s ability to follow through on royalties. In that case I will ask for a larger upfront payment for full rights and let the client take the risk that their product will take off.

Work for Hire: This is really just another form of full copyrights but it’s usually for projects that involve a lot more creative work by the artist, like storytelling or character development. Basically under work for hire the client owns everything associated with the concept and development all the way up to and including any final art. You might be developing a concept for a product line, or doing a multiple page feature for a comic book anthology, or designing a video game character. This is also the type of agreement you usually work under when working on someone else’s intellectual property (I.P.), like if Disney hires you to draw Mickey Mouse for a line of products or their comics. Not only does the client own all the art you produce, but they own any concepts or characters developed along the way. They can take a character you came up with for their ad campaign and make a movie or TV show out of it, a series of books, products… anything. This is the arrangement I worked under with MAD, and why they can reprint anything I did for them forever without paying me another dime.

That sounds like a bad deal… and it is in a lot of cases. It makes most sense when working on someone else’s licensed properties, since you don’t own those anyway and you couldn’t use the work for anything else. In my case it was fine with MAD, since I worked on other people’s scripts and reprint rights were the only thing I was really giving up. If I was doing my own characters for MAD and had the potential of creating the next Spy vs. Spy, that would have been different. To MAD and DC’s credit in latter years they had a different arrangement for that kind of original work in MAD. If you created characters or I.P. you had a stake in anything they did with those characters, like if they made an animated TV show out of them.

In all but full copyright and work for hire agreements, the artist retains all copyrights to the art beyond what is granted to the client. This means the artist can sell copyrights to the same image to someone else later. They can sell prints of the art, use it for self promotion, etc.

Unless specified in an agreement, ownership of any original art is seperate from the copyright. I can do a cover for a comic book where the comic book company owns the copyright, but I own the original and can sell it if I want to. The person that buys it now owns the original art, but NOT the copyright. They can’t make prints of the original and sell them. This is actually true of any original piece of art I might do and sell. The artist owns the copyright of anything they create, even if they sell the original of that creation, unless the sign away the copyrights with the art.

Copyrights can be a little confusing. It’s always best to spell it all out in writing in an agreement before picking up your pencil.

Thanks to Steve B for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!