Waving copyright

[Mike Smith]

The client cannot impose anything on you after contract – retrospectively – and if they want you to sign something now about work already completed or under way then they likely know that your contract / agreement does not include what they are asking for. But of course you want to be nice to your client as much as you can – though not at the cost of giving away the store.

If you supplied footage or programmes as contracted and they now want the source files, my own inclination would be not to supply, and certainly not at no extra cost. The only reason they could want those is to build on or modify your work without paying you for it: if not contracted to, why would you help with that?

Any change of terms – new signature – would have to be acceptable to both parties.

So you could smile and say no, not in our agreement.

If they want extra from you, you can either supply it at extra charge to cover the additional work and materials in copying or supplying masters as well as the additional intellectual property rights not contracted for, or simply not agree to the change of terms. Or you could you could tell them what extra costs they are causing you and extra rights they are asking for, but offer them as a freebie.

This may limit your chance of more work from this client.

And perhaps it was a mistake to give the huge discounts and not to charge for media and storage …?