Unpaid Work

#1

Hi all. Have you ever done work for a client and after weeks of toiling and slaving over a painting or digital work, the client uses the work and decides that it is a beautiful piece and thanks so much, uses it for a book or whatever and refuses to pay? Don’t you hate that? Would love to hear your horror stories, will tell you mine.

#2

Don’t toil for a client until they have agreed to pay, in writing. If they have broken such an agreement browse this thread for some ideas on how to proceed.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=691754

People who expect something for nothing, deserve nothing. People who get something for nothing are generally very lucky or very shady. Only you can protect yourself from being unwittingly generous.

#3

That happened to me working with a young band and another young musician. I never had any problems with known musicians and studios. But that’s really big bad issue… :frowning:

#4

To a great extent you do have control over situations like this, IF you first make up a contract and have the client sign it. Many of us are creative, but when deciding to be creative as your career, you need to also be a business person. That means protecting the interests of you and your business by following some sort of process to ensure that situations like this don’t arise. From this day forward you should make it a standard practice to have a contract in writing that you provide clients, and also get in the practice of receiving a portion of the final payment up front before any work is done. I feel for your situation, but you made a simple mistake, let it be a lesson for future endeavors. Take some time and write up a simple contract that you provide all clients at the onset of a job/negotiation. You are not powerless, be proactive in how you run your business.

Good luck!

T.

#5

I spent ages designing, modeling and posing these characters for a company:
http://andyh.cgsociety.org/gallery/694473/

They were called ‘blondo productions’ and were set up to create a pitch for a big TV series. They said that if the job went ahead, they would make me creative director - all the time, i was slightly suspicious of such a small representitive for a seemingly major production, but thought nothing of it.
Once i finished the job, i was stalled 2 or 3 times when it came to payment, then bounced around several different members of staff responsible for paying me, then they just stopped answering my emails and i was never paid.
Thankfully, i only sent them renders, not the models, so they cannot produce any more images than the ones i sent them.

Since then, i do things properly, and demand a signed contract and proof that they are legally entitled to pay me X amound of £ so that if this does happen again, i have legal proof.

Its a dodgy world, freelancing - ive only ever had this one problem, but it can happen to anyone.

#6

I did this scene in two weeks working non-stop, I wasn’t supposed to be paid, it was a test, I was supposed to be hired :slight_smile: . Then I waited for another couple of weeks just to hear a “no” without any explanation. Then I spent another two weeks reminding myself how much I must have sucked :slight_smile: .

#7

Thanks so much for your thoughts and don’t be so hard on yourself. There are many individuals that would take advantage of us artists, because they seem to think that we love doing it and don’t require any money. Anyway, believe in yourself, don’t give up. Just be careful!

#8

check out the minute 01:00 to 01:15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_0R4l0ISNs

that’s what every artist should say to someone who runs from payment:applause:

ok, that’s a bit too much :slight_smile: but, being unpaid really makes a guy pissed

personally, i have 2 blacklisted customers. they owe me more than 200$ :S

#9

Yes, I think it might be a bit too extreme, but don’t you wish that there was an agency that did approach the non payers with a similar method, it would be a hoot just to view their reactions.
Anyway it is a good as a way of blowing off steam over these sort of things.

thahx wes

#10

After two unpaid work (one of them used my cover illustration online on his myspace page) I decided to put “sample” watermark in the middle of the image. I feel so stupid about this tough sent my stuff w/o watermark, but sometimes we can only learn things with experiencing them :slight_smile:

#11

Thanks for the advice Kerem. Too late for me. I was led to believe that this man was from a “real” publishing house and after several months a changes and more changes to the cover, including the mechanicals, it went to the printer (at my expense as well for FTP charges) only to find out NOTHING was right about the whole job…he didn’t understand “photoshop” as compared to “traditional” and said he was cheated… If I had done this job traditionally, I would have gone through about 10 canvases. At the end of “okaying” the illustration he came back and wanted the illustration to completely wrap around the book, instead of just appearing on the front cover…how would you do this traditionally??? Interesting how some people feel that when an illustration is created in Photoshop, that the computer does all the work? I am finding that some clients want is not only faster but cheaper.

#12

I have no experience with these kinds of problems, but if there isn’t any contract, and the guy did not pay you… Isn’t it a copyright matter? I could imagine, like with a lot of stuff, that it’s not ‘legal’ to just use anything without paying for it. I understand that taking it to court would be extreme, but you can make your point very clear that he can’t use it without your permission, and he’ll only get your permission by paying you a fair amount.

#13

my clients get to see the latest wips in a smaller resolution.

just after being payed the full price I’m going to provide the final work for the clients…

works fine for me. never had any problems

greets

#14

In the future, I will only supply a j-peg and the old saying or adage " no ticky no laundry " will apply. Fortunately there are more reputable people than there are these type out there.
thanks again

wes

#15

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