I Have a question: I have a potential new client that has a little character that someone has drawn for him. its a little BOX man with arms and legs he call "Giffy " for his Crystal business I have met with him in person He has seen my character animation work and wants me to make "giffy in to an animated character. for use on his company web site. he just called me yesterday to announce that his company is merging with another so the stockvalue of his business is " about to explode" blah blah blah. ( Admittedly MY B.S. detector is no full alert!!) Any way i could model this little box man easily in Lightwave or Cinema 4DXl-7 and rig him in MY Propac setup room. I would do this because i would prefer to animate him in poser and export the animations as flash due to flashes broad cross platform web compatibility. I have the incredibleTad Crawford Book" Business and legal forms for Illustrators" which has A CD rom of customizable contracts for almost any Commission / licenseing situation. But i am at a loss as to what degree of ownership i shouldor can retain of the output from the animation i created using the model I created of HIS trademarked character any one know of a legit web source that covers a scenario like this??

I don't know the legal answer to this. But my question to you is WHY would you bother with all that ownership stuff? It's much easier to charge the guy a flat fee for creating the figure. Then charging a fee for every animation you do with it from there on. You won't own the figure anymore. But you'll sleep much easier at night if you don't need to worry about all that ownership stuff. So I'd sell him the 3D figure first (even if it's very cheap). Then contract the animation stuff from there. ScottA

I've been doing commission work for some time, and kind of disagree with ScottA (sorry guy). Ownership is important, because you never know what will "take-off" and become an extremely valuable property. With small deals (anything under $10,000 commissions) joint ownership with no exclusives is probably the easiest form to manage and protect the both of you. If your client is insisting on exclusive ownership then jack up the price to at least double what you might otherwise charge. If your client is not the one bringing up the subject, then the less said, the better - leave him to "assume" that he is buying full rights (but don't mislead or decieve him). The current copyright law is in the favor of the creator, who retains ownership and rights unless expressly transferred via a written contract -- even if you are paid for the work. If the original design is theirs, then they retain those rights anyway, and you can not use the character based on their design even if you make the mesh.

Just a curious question, but doesn't the guy who drew the "Giffy" own the character? Unless the client paid to have it created?

Moon has it right. Wolf's work on this is the equivalent of an illustrator commissioned by, say, Disney to create illustrations of previously trademarked and copyrighted materials. In that case, the illustrator owns no rights to the finished piece; it is strictly "work for hire". The fact that Wolf is creating a 3D version is irrelevant -- an illustrator would be doing the same thing in 2D and, at the end of the day, would own no more rights to the work than Wolf will. You are not a "creator" for this piece in terms of the copyright law, because the "creation" has already been done. Scott's advice is the best course in cases like this: charge a fee, then charge as well for each subsequent animation.

My advice? In your deal, you have to spell out clearly who owns what. Do that right up front and don't shrink away from it. Failure to do that will result in nobody CLEARLY owning anything. If you want part ownership of the character, then ask for it and make it a part of the written agreement. Sometimes I hire people to do work for me. When I do, I always want to own outright what I pay for, but I'm willing to pay top dollar for that ownership. If your client wants to own the character, you should charge a higher price for your work and then let it go. To that extent, I agree with ronstuff. But I disagree with ronstuff when he says "If your client is not the one bringing up the subject, then the less said, the better - leave him to "assume" that he is buying full rights (but don't mislead or decieve him)." That kind of "assumption" on your client's part can backfire on you. Suppose he makes a toy deal for the character and he leaves you out of it? After all, he assumes the character is his. So you go to him and you tell him that you think you own part of the character. He's not simply going to say, "Oh, alright," and cut you in. Life doesn't work that way. You'll have to go to court to fight for your rights. That costs money, time...and you still might lose. Believe me, it's better to get everything straight right up front.