Oct/090
The Work is Done, So Where’s the Dough?
aka Contract Breaches and Demand Letters
This is the age-old question that has plagued countless artists in the past and will doubtless plague countless artists in the future.
You’ve been hired by Company ABC to do some illustrations for them. You’re smart and you work out a good contract, which entitles you to payment within x number of days.
You did the work on time and turned it in with no problems. But the unthinkable happens and x number of days has passed and you are without money. Now you’re hungry and have no electricity because Company ABC didn’t meet their legal obligation to you. But, hiring an attorney or arbitrator, if that is what your contract provisions, is expensive at worst and time consuming at best. You just want your rightfully due money!
Well, don’t call your lawyer quite yet. There is one more thing you can do.
It’s called a Notice of Breach of Contract or a Demand Letter. And it goes a little something like this:
By Registered Mail
Recipient’s Name
Recipient’s Address
Date
Dear Recipient’s Name:
Re: Contract between Recipient’s Name and Your Name dated Date of Contract (the “Contract”).
You are hereby notified that you are in breach of Specify Provision in Contract which Specify How Breached (ie. you are in breach of Section 3 of the contract which requires you to pay within 30 days of acceptance of the work).
The said breach results from Specify Action which resulted in breach (ie. your failure to pay within 30 days of July 20th, 2009, when the work was formally accepted).
You are hereby notified that unless the said breach is remedied within Specify Applicable Cure Period (ie 10 days) of the date of this letter, then we reserve the right to exercise any and all remedies available to us under the terms of the Contract or in law.
You are hereby notified that we require State the Nature of the Demand (ie immediate payment of the contractually agreed amount of $1000.oo), failing which we reserve the right to exercise any and all remedies available to us under the terms of the Contract or in law.
Yours truly,
Your Name
You may want to include printed evidence that you have of your claim, such as emails saying the work was accepted, etc, depending on what the terms of your contract are.
I simply copied this format from the internet, and you can simply write it in plain English, if that suits your preference better.
Make sure you send the letter via the post. Don’t send an email demand letter. Note the day and time you sent the letter, make sure the date on your letter is accurate.
The hope is that the company will see this, go “Oh yes, paying them is a good idea for us” and just pay you. If they still don’t, you may have to take it to the next step. This may seem harsh or make you nervous, but it is really nothing but fair. You deserve to be paid for your work, on time, and without a lot of runaround- it’s just that simple!
Aug/094
Commission Contracts
When you take a professional job, you of course want to make sure you are going to be compensated for it, just as anyone hiring you wants to make sure that you’re going to deliver a product that they are happy with. To enforce this agreement, the company can issue a contract, which is a legally binding agreement. Alternatively, you can also issue a contract, and should do so when you take on a new client or job! Without a contract you have no way to enforce the agreement and to guarantee you will be paid for your work. But you need to be careful, because even with a contract you can be burned, so you have to read the fine print.
Most contracts cover a few basic points:
- Who, Why, When, What- Who are the parties involved, Why is Party A hiring Party B, When is the agreement taking place, and What compensation is being given to Party B.
- Scope of the project and specifics or details. This includes payment details which are of utmost importance.
- Responsibilities of each party. The artist agrees to certain revisions and progress reports, the client agrees not to intentionally destroy the work, etc.
- Contract termination. What happens if the artist cannot produce the work as specified or the client changes their mind.
- Legal issues and liabilities. Who owns the work, who pays attorney fees if things go sour, licensing agreement, etc.
I’ve created a contract for example and also available for use. It’s an amalgamation of many contracts that I’ve found free on the web (google: art contracts) and what I consider to be the best parts of each. It’s under Creative Commons so you can feel free to use and edit it to suit your purposes. I explain the contract in more detail after the jump.
For now, you can find the sample contract here.
You Are Your Own Best Advocate
Contracts don’t have to be written in legal-ese. You can easily write your own contract to suit your style, as this web developer does. Just be sure you cover the finer points so you’re covered.
Things to watch out for:
Your work, your rights. Do NOT just give the rights to your work away. If someone wants the rights, it is typical to charge 150% to 200% more for the work. You can retain the rights to your work and license it out to a company just as easily.
Payment schedule. Some companies pay a deposit for the work, then the rest after acceptance (or as the job is done), others pay the full amount on acceptance, and still others pay after publication. If you can, try to get the jobs where your work will be paid for immediately. Publication can take a really, really long time, and companies can go bankrupt before your work ever sees the printing press. A piece you may be relying on for your food and electricity might not hit the shelves until a year later. That would be bad. You would be very hungry.
Law and Order
There is help out there for those seeking legal counsel, provided for free (I know, I couldn’t believe it either).
The Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA) has branches in over thirty states and internationally. You can find them through this directory.