Should my clients own my designs, or should I license them?
Intellectual propertyDesignContracts
Unless you sign something that says otherwise, you own the copyright in the work you design for a client, even after they have paid the invoice. A freelance or studio designer is not the client's employee, so the work belongs to the person who made it until a written assignment moves it. Most clients assume they own their logo. Most designers have never signed anything that gives it to them. That gap is worth closing in the contract, one way or the other.
Why paying for it is not enough
Copyright law treats work by an employee, made as part of the job, as the employer's. Work by an independent contractor is a different matter. It only becomes the client's automatically if it falls into one of nine narrow categories in the Copyright Act, such as a contribution to a collective work or part of a film, and both sides sign a document calling it work made for hire. A logo, a brand identity or a website design usually fits none of the nine. For those, the only way the client ends up owning the work is a signed assignment.
The two ways to set it up
- Assignment. You transfer the copyright in the final, approved deliverables to the client. The usual practice is to make the transfer take effect on full payment, so the client owns the work once you have been paid and not before.
- License. You keep the copyright and give the client permission to use the work for a stated purpose: the brand, the campaign, the territory, the term. A license can be exclusive, so nobody else can use it, or non-exclusive. It suits illustration, photography and anything you might adapt or reuse.
Most brand identity work is assigned, because a client cannot build a business on a logo it only borrows. Most illustration and creative assets are licensed, because the designer keeps the right to the underlying art.
What stays yours either way
Sketches, rejected concepts, working files and your own tools, templates and code libraries are not part of the deliverable unless the contract says they are. Fonts and stock images are licensed from someone else, and you cannot assign what you do not own, so the client needs its own font and stock licenses for anything it will use beyond your files.
What to do
- Pick assignment or license for each project and write it into the design agreement, not the invoice.
- Tie any assignment to full payment.
- List what is excluded: concepts, working files, your tools and templates.
- Tell the client which fonts and stock assets need their own license.
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Written by the lawyers who built Arabella. This is legal information, not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. For a real dispute or a high-stakes decision, talk to a licensed attorney. More questions.