Clandestine
Junior Member
California, United States.
I have a question regarding the copyright ownership and privilege for art I created for a website.
The story goes as, many starting-out artists would "volunteer" for this website and create art for it. There was never any payment given for our artwork. We did not know much of the kind of business we were getting into, were never informed of any of our rights or privileges.
No contract was EVER signed. We were allowing, on our good grace, to allow this website to use the art we were kindly providing for them. There were times in the history of the website that artists had an issue with their art being used, and had it removed, or another artist redrew the image to have the old one removed.
The website went downhill eventually, and died off. At one point I brought up the issue of the art not being under any contract to an administrator, and we were going to have an agreement that was necessary to be an artist for the site, but it never happened. I had attempted to get in contact with the owner for a while in regards to the issue of the copyrights to the art, before and after the site went down. He was very difficult to contact. I had wanted to sell some of the art I had created to other parties, but wanted to speak with him about it first. Eventually, I gave up.
Recently, the website came back up and is going to be going into a new Beta. I spoke to the new owners briefly, mostly about possibly providing my work for them in the future. The first thing I stated to them was that there was an issue with the art of the site that may be of importance, but they never responded to that subject.
Every other website of this nature I worked for had me agree to a contract that clearly stated I would be forfeiting copyright ownership and privileges before I was permitted to submit any work to them.
My question is, would I legally retain the copyrights to my artwork? Was it legal for the previous owner to make a sale of the artwork with his site without even contacting me and getting my permission? What actions should I take?
On top of this, we were allowed some "custom" virtual items on the site, usually of our own characters and designs. Even if I don't retain copyrights to our other work, are the stated "customs" art and ideal still my property? As I had customs representing my own off-site characters I created, and would be very upset to have them weaseled away by something like this.
Thank you.
I have a question regarding the copyright ownership and privilege for art I created for a website.
The story goes as, many starting-out artists would "volunteer" for this website and create art for it. There was never any payment given for our artwork. We did not know much of the kind of business we were getting into, were never informed of any of our rights or privileges.
No contract was EVER signed. We were allowing, on our good grace, to allow this website to use the art we were kindly providing for them. There were times in the history of the website that artists had an issue with their art being used, and had it removed, or another artist redrew the image to have the old one removed.
The website went downhill eventually, and died off. At one point I brought up the issue of the art not being under any contract to an administrator, and we were going to have an agreement that was necessary to be an artist for the site, but it never happened. I had attempted to get in contact with the owner for a while in regards to the issue of the copyrights to the art, before and after the site went down. He was very difficult to contact. I had wanted to sell some of the art I had created to other parties, but wanted to speak with him about it first. Eventually, I gave up.
Recently, the website came back up and is going to be going into a new Beta. I spoke to the new owners briefly, mostly about possibly providing my work for them in the future. The first thing I stated to them was that there was an issue with the art of the site that may be of importance, but they never responded to that subject.
Every other website of this nature I worked for had me agree to a contract that clearly stated I would be forfeiting copyright ownership and privileges before I was permitted to submit any work to them.
My question is, would I legally retain the copyrights to my artwork? Was it legal for the previous owner to make a sale of the artwork with his site without even contacting me and getting my permission? What actions should I take?
On top of this, we were allowed some "custom" virtual items on the site, usually of our own characters and designs. Even if I don't retain copyrights to our other work, are the stated "customs" art and ideal still my property? As I had customs representing my own off-site characters I created, and would be very upset to have them weaseled away by something like this.
Thank you.
