Question on the morality of DXF sharing?

[AdrianH]

Please do not take this as an affront to anyone but genuine questions, that I am not sure about the answers.

If you do a commissioned work for a customer i.e. they give you a picture and pay you to produce a plasma work, or any work for that matter, who, in general owns it. What rights would the customer have to the artwork. Now I know that unless there is a contract done specifically stating one way or the other how would you see it.

If you donate an image on here to share what about later finding it on ebay for example just as a dxf for a fee.

I am asking as I have not found guidelines to posting images and their use. I definitely do not want to make money from others © images, I like the ideas many provide, most for me are not easily scalable down to my hobby table, but could give me ideas, but I would not consider making a collection and selling them on.

Interested in your views, but not after an argument.

Adrian

[harrymorley]

I figure anything I post is absolutely free. Use it how you see fit. I also figure anything thats posted here is absolutely free. I believe if ya want a fee for your work , post it as such.

[BAR M]

Amen.

[Gamelord]

This is a gray area but normally, if you are hired or commissioned to draw up an image for a customer, and you do so and then create the work for that customer, unless you have specifically stated in your agreement, the image, your drawings, all rights and ownership including the final product belongs to the customer. The tricky word here is that you were "Hired" by the customer to do the job. This would be the same as a computer programmer working for Microsoft coding up a program on Microsoft's time and then after it is done taking it for themselves.....nope, even though they did all the coding work, Microsoft owns the rights and coding for that program. Another way to think of this is hiring a construction company to build an add-on garage to your house, even though they did all the work and maybe even drew up the design and plans, after the work is done they do NOT own your garage, you do because they were hired to do the job by you and for you, therefore you own the job, the plans, all the rights and the finished product.

If you are not ok with this then you may want to make up a disclaimer in your invoice or bid or whatever you use for your customers that state that all drawings and images that you draw or create become your property to do with whatever you wish. Make sure they sign it and then you should be fine with using their drawings for your own use afterwords. (Caution: I am not a lawyer, you may want to talk to one to make sure the wording is right.)


If you dontate an image on here to share...then that is what you are doing, basically saying "Hey, this is free for anyone to use so have at it". If someone takes that image and sells it somewhere else, then you don't have much of a recourse. There is a fine print on original artwork that you may possibly have some legal recourse to someone selling your image, but the cost of taking legal action will most likely not be worth it and chances are that if they are selling on fleebay, they haven't got any money to sue for anyways. My thoughts on this is "If you don't want the world to have it, don't put it online!!!" That includes pictures as well as drawings or DXF's.

Most file shares on here are done so with the knowledge that someone will most likely produce the item for commercial use so as long as you are contributing member, you should be fine with anything you download from this site.

---just my two cents worth on this....and it is probably only worth one cent.

[AdrianH]

Thanks Gamelord and the others, the points about being hired to do a job, are what I had in my mind, that the buyer has the rights and it was a few posts I have seen saying briefly 'I have done this for a customer and here it is to share', that got me thinking about it. Not being commercial it is not something I have to deal with, but where I work the terms have a clause claiming anything I do or make is there's? So I was wondering about others thoughts on it..

Cheers

Adrian

[yeomansjon]

When I share a dxf, I assume that it's going to be used either personally or commercially. I've seen some of my stuff show up on other's sites for sale, and I take it as the biggest form of flattery.

There are a few things I make that I feel are way to unique to me and my business and are big sellers so I don't share those files, as much as I would love to for the folks on here to make for themselves personally. I've also questioned what happens with contracted art and always fall back to the fact that if I pay someone to generate Art, then I own it. If I request free or someone donates art to me, they own it.

Bottom line, if you share something here, it's pretty well understood that you are giving full rights for other's to use your file.

[RobinHillMachine]

I make a lot of files! Some I post here and elsewhere for free, some I sell as cut metal, some I sell as files, and most are custom files.

Here's my thoughts on it...

When a customer orders something from me, I only charge a design fee if it is truly custom, like a portrait of them. If they say "I want to be the only person in the world with this design" then I charge a design fee and they are the only one to get it. But most orders I make the customer doesn't care and just wants to hang this thing on their wall. Thus, I will offer it to others for sale.

If they are paying me for design time, the file is theirs. If they are only paying me to cut it, the design is mine.

As for free files... I have shared many many files. If I saw one of my DXFs posted for sale, I would be pissed. I would most likely write to the one selling it asking them to take it down, then post a link to the sale ad on my facebook page with a link to the free download.

If someone were to share one of my free files on another forum I would take no issue with that.

If I post a free file I assume people will use it in work they are being paid for. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a file I made being cut from metal and sold on eBay. I have no issue with that.

As for paid files... if you pay for a file that you download, you have the right to make something from it and sell it. That's what they are there for. You do not have the right to share a paid file or to resell it.

As for custom files... when I make custom files for people, they pay me for my time and are free to do with it as they see fit. I do not share or resell custom files. I delete them from my computer about a month after they order it. If I think the DXF may be a good seller on Etsy for me, I will offer the DXF customer Etsy prices (much cheaper than custom file prices) and sell it to many people.

There is a lot of grey area that I don't really know the legal stuff on, but that's my take on it.

~Julie

[AdrianH]

That sounds very sensible Julie, I have looked at your site and read your custom service etc.

I have bought files before from ebay, back in the early days of me starting with cnc plasma and I do wonder sometimes about the commercial rights of some of the files I paid for. My cuts are simple and I have done a few name mongrams for family and friends, the monograms were bought from Etsy and that is after I became aware of the site from posts on here.

By the looks of it there are different views on potential uses of the files and I guess a common sense approach should be taken, selling your own cut metal is generally OK, selling on a someone’s dxf, dubious.

Adrian

[Rodw]

Coming from the printing industry, I adopted the terms of the Printing Industry Association in our country which stated that copyright of the artwork prepared by the printer remained the property of the printer and the customer was granted a limited licence to use that artwork. Occasionally we negotiated different conditions on customer request. This is a long standing condition.

Because these conditions were clearly understood in the industry and when a customer attempted to take my artwork to another printer when I had not been paid, I contacted the other printer and he honoured my conditions and did not print it (Possibly becasue he wanted to make sure he got paid)... So if you had similar clauses in your terms and conditions, you would be in the clear if you shared your design. Maybe if you know a printer, he might have the wording in our country (or is kind enough to publish it on his web site).

[wickedinhere]

If i do a truly custom piece(whatever that means) I don't duplicate it. I had a customer send me a pic of a tattoo she had and i spent a good bit of my time converting it. I gave her a fair price and she just blew me off. I gave her 30 days then cut the piece to sell so i could at least get some money back for my time. She saw it and blew up saying it was her design and she was gonna sue me. Well i did a google image search and guess what she is the one who copied someones business logo. I never did sell that piece so it was a total loss.LOL I sent her a pic of the logo i found and never heard from her again go figure.

[wickedinhere]

Coming from the printing industry, I adopted the terms of the Printing Industry Association in our country which stated that copyright of the artwork prepared by the printer remained the property of the printer and the customer was granted a limited licence to use that artwork. Occasionally we negotiated different conditions on customer request. This is a long standing condition.

Because these conditions were clearly understood in the industry and when a customer attempted to take my artwork to another printer when I had not been paid, I contacted the other printer and he honoured my conditions and did not print it (Possibly becasue he wanted to make sure he got paid)... So if you had similar clauses in your terms and conditions, you would be in the clear if you shared your design. Maybe if you know a printer, he might have the wording in our country (or is kind enough to publish it on his web site).

That's a good practice! I have had several people send me drawings from other company's and i tell them i wont touch it because the other guy did the design. Its not fair for one guy to do all that work and not get paid for his time. People always get mad when i tell them that but i don't want them as customers anyways so no loss for me.

[tnbndr]

I have had several people send me drawings from other company's and i tell them i wont touch it because the other guy did the design.

I have the same thing occur regularly and always tell the customer to buy it from the other guy because by the time I draw it and cut it it will be more expensive and I won't do it anyway. Only way I would is if it was a shared public file say from here or it was a purchased file from a set that I have purchased and have the right to use.
If I do custom work for a customer that involves personal pictures, etc I wouldn't sell that anyway. But if I do a custom design from purchased or free art by just creating a custom layout I will tell the customer that this piece may be reproduced and sold in the future and I don't charge a design fee. If they want to be the only owners of the design then I explain they must pay the full design fee and I will give them the file with the piece. I would then delete it from my computer. This has never happened, yet!!

[runninwild400]

I've had a few photos of customers cars and bikes converted so I could make custom signs for them and the people I paid to convert the photos for me are selling those files now. When I questioned them about it after I had seen the files for sale they said that's how they can keep the price down doing custom work.

[RobinHillMachine]

I've had a few photos of customers cars and bikes converted so I could make custom signs for them and the people I paid to convert the photos for me are selling those files now. When I questioned them about it after I had seen the files for sale they said that's how they can keep the price down doing custom work.

I've heard similar stories from a couple people. It was always the same name associated with it.

When you order a custom file, it should be custom. Period. If you pay premium prices to have a file converted to a DXF, then it is your design.

When I make a custom file, I put the name of the person on it. I have had other people contact me asking for that same custom file, in which case I message the original guy, ask if it's okay to resell, and offer a discount on his next file or a free file pack of ones I already have ready.

My new thing is saying "it will be $40 for a custom file, or you can pay $10 and I will list it on Etsy for sale." Most people are happy to take that option. It doesn't work for every file, but ones of cars, tractors, animals, it's worth it.

It's not right to sell someone a custom file then turn around a resell it to everyone.

[copefarms]

Gamelord mentions this "This is a gray area but normally, if you are hired or commissioned to draw up an image for a customer, and you do so and then create the work for that customer, unless you have specifically stated in your agreement, the image, your drawings, all rights and ownership including the final product belongs to the customer. The tricky word here is that you were "Hired" by the customer to do the job. This would be the same as a computer programmer working for Microsoft coding up a program on Microsoft's time and then after it is done taking it for themselves.....nope, even though they did all the coding work, Microsoft owns the rights and coding for that program. Another way to think of this is hiring a construction company to build an add-on garage to your house, even though they did all the work and maybe even drew up the design and plans, after the work is done they do NOT own your garage, you do because they were hired to do the job by you and for you, therefore you own the job, the plans, all the rights and the finished product."

But this isn't entirely true. When you work for Microsoft you an employee of that company. That company owns the rights to your work or code.
If I work for myself and you come to me and ask me to code (or plasma cut something) then unless we have a written contract that stipulates who owns the design, code, photograph, etc the work is owned by the artist or creator. The person who paid you to create it may own the physical object but you own the intellectual rights to said item. Unless you specifically give away your intellectual rights in a written contract. Owning he intellectual rights allows you to produce as many of whatever whenever you wish.

[kailogan96]

We really need to read the copy right laws for ourselves. There are so many opinions but so few are correct.
In basic terms..
If one works for a company and draws a piece.. That art belongs to a company.
If one works for themselves and creates an art piece and affixes it to any media that art instantly belongs to the artist regardless if the art was commissioned or not.. The artist retains full rights for all his or her art. The artist retains all rights unless he/she specifically transfers those rights in writing to another party.

If sign maker develops an original sign/logo for a client. That sign design/logo belongs to the sign maker. Only if the contract states other wise via a written statement will the client have rights to use that design for other pieces. They do not own it in any way . Even if the artist grants them via word of mouth or default.

Derivative art has a whole new definition. However, using clip art to develop a logo or a sign or any other art does not give copyright protection.

Changing someone's art 10% or 40% does not make it legal. If the art is easily confused with another piece then it is in violation.
Changing the art is not the test.

[copefarms]

kaliogan96 and i said basically the same thing but they said it more clearly than I.