> On the other hand, I'm betting you'll have a hard time naming a company that had to pay "thousands of dollars in lawyer fees" for buying what turned out to be a boosted logo. You just take the logo down and get a new one.
It doesn't exactly work like that. I wish I could find my notes right now, I have a half-written blog on copyright issues for clients that I did a bunch of research and found these cases. Anyway, you don't get to just say sorry and move on. You're liable for damages whether you knew about it or not. You can, of course, go after the designer if they're not outside your reach (international or hidden behind an anonymous online identity) but it's a real issue. As a designer, I have to know about this stuff because I can be sued if a client gives me something they don't have permission to use and I do. There are, of course, a number of issues that could effect the outcome including if the copyright is registered and if they're willing to go through the effort to go after you but it's a danger that shouldn't be ignored. (I am not a lawyer. I just have a healthy fear of them.)
> The process you're advocating, with the specific bells and whistles you're mentioning, starts at $5000. No sale. Could you instead give him some advice that involves a more effective use of $500?
Not always. My wife and I are both designers. Many of our friends are designers. We do a lot of on-the-side work with small budgets that would give a much better result for the same cost. Sometimes one of us will come home from doing something during our 9-5 for a huge multi-billion dollar corporation to do something for a 1 person startup. Often the startup has more interesting projects and are much nicer to work with. Plus, I don't have to wear a suit, a fake smile and get patted down by under-paid security when I go to meet the CEO of tiny-startup, llc. And as a bonus, most of you guys pay in less than 6 months without having to resubmit form 41824817B with the new PO number to the department that never answers their phones. (I hate corporate work.)
Would you care to cite a case where someone bought a logo on 99designs and was then sued for thousands of dollars in damages when that logo turned out to have been stolen? I couldn't find one. You'd think, if that had ever once actually happened, it would be easy to find.
I wish you and your wife the best. Believe it or not, I have very similar experiences working with startups! They reach out to us all the time for security work, and I'm always happy to talk to them; I like hearing about what they're doing. Most new startups are nowhere near ready to pay the going rate for software security assessments. When they get on the phone with me, I don't explain to them how they need to forget about buying that next server or renting their first office so they can make room in their budget for an assessment. I give them advice and point them to options for getting some kind of baseline coverage in advance of driving serious revenue through their system, at which point maybe it would make sense for an assessment.
My experience with all sorts of professional services practices mirrors this. Lawyers, for instance, will often do consults for free as a form of speculative work in anticipation of a client eventually being big enough to do real business with.
So... as a (perhaps inadvertent) spokesperson for your profession, why don't you tell us what someone like Colin should do in this situation? Hope he runs into a designer who will take his $500 and throw him a bone for the fun of it, as a change of pace from corporate work?
It doesn't exactly work like that. I wish I could find my notes right now, I have a half-written blog on copyright issues for clients that I did a bunch of research and found these cases. Anyway, you don't get to just say sorry and move on. You're liable for damages whether you knew about it or not. You can, of course, go after the designer if they're not outside your reach (international or hidden behind an anonymous online identity) but it's a real issue. As a designer, I have to know about this stuff because I can be sued if a client gives me something they don't have permission to use and I do. There are, of course, a number of issues that could effect the outcome including if the copyright is registered and if they're willing to go through the effort to go after you but it's a danger that shouldn't be ignored. (I am not a lawyer. I just have a healthy fear of them.)
> The process you're advocating, with the specific bells and whistles you're mentioning, starts at $5000. No sale. Could you instead give him some advice that involves a more effective use of $500?
Not always. My wife and I are both designers. Many of our friends are designers. We do a lot of on-the-side work with small budgets that would give a much better result for the same cost. Sometimes one of us will come home from doing something during our 9-5 for a huge multi-billion dollar corporation to do something for a 1 person startup. Often the startup has more interesting projects and are much nicer to work with. Plus, I don't have to wear a suit, a fake smile and get patted down by under-paid security when I go to meet the CEO of tiny-startup, llc. And as a bonus, most of you guys pay in less than 6 months without having to resubmit form 41824817B with the new PO number to the department that never answers their phones. (I hate corporate work.)