Client wants my source material, but IMO, he didn’t pay for it

[Ron Lindeboom]

I have had my share of wins and losses, Kyle. Luckily, the wins have far outweighed the losses and even the losses have taught me much — so much so that I’d never opt to miss them if I were given the chance to replay my life. As I have tried to teach my kids, you learn far more from your failures than your successes and so there is no need to fear them.

You seem hellbent on missing the point that people do NOT have to agree with one another around here, Kyle. There are many different opinions and yours is just one.

Ron Lindeboom

[Spooky]

This is an intersting thread. For example, when I am working on an Flash project, it’s always assumed (rightly or not) that I’ll be handing over the .fla’s. With AE or Maya, I don’t think I would feel comfortable handing over file. I think it may be that we consider motions graphics work to be “fixed” projects, whereas with something like Flash a client is almost always going to be adding or tweaking something over time and generally without my input. It’s like with Flash they’re buying the code and with AE etc it’s the final product. Or something.

With any project like this, I think the problem starts to arise when you are using various fonts, plug-ins etc. Not to mention, what client is going to make sense out of my my huge convoluted AE file that consists of precomp after precomp!

[Carnegis]

Unless we have an agreement otherwise I keep source files like AEP, Photoshop, etc. The client owns and pays for shoot tapes and final masters. The way I look at it is that the final product is the house and the aep file is the blueprints, seperate copyright and seperate product. If a client want to get the source file at the end then I would put some sort of fee in there and it would be in the original contract stating such.

[Mark]

I would never hand over AEP files, under any circumstance. So I am supposed to create the layered text effects and shot treatment, then the company hiring me can go to some rookie to change the text and replace the footage for subsequent use, come on….be real.

That would be like Picasso creating a paint by numbers for others to replicate his work.

Mark

[Gary Taylor]

Over the years I have almost always refused to give my source materials to customers under these circumstances. I have found that it has not been in my best interest to do business with those who wanted to aquire my source code and techniques without paying extra for it. On the rare occasions when I have yielded I have always regretted it in the end.

As a producer I do sometimes contract with others to deliver a work for hire. Usually this involves using their work product to produce something that requires technical skills they don’t have, and it is always agreed upon in advance. Even then I almost never ask for project files, just the raw assets. Because this agreed upon in the original contract, it up to the creative professional to price work with these assumptions in mind.

For a customer to ask for this after a production is complete is quite presumptuous. Depending upon what you are doing you might find yourself competing against your own work at some future date. And to make matters worse it also likely that customers who would do this are the same ones who played hardball to get you to lower your rate in the beginning.
Gary