Signing away your rights
Out of context: Reply #9
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- nb0
A crazy idea: send them a response explaining that as a designer this type of agreement could drastically reduce your ability to charge industry rates and/or find work and that you could only sign it after being compensated for this loss of work.
Calculate the amount of experience per year that you think you'd get coming straight out of school, and how much you would charge now with ten years industry experience. Multiply this by the number of years it could take to rebuild that portfolio.
Essentially, ask for something ridiculous like $70,000 to cover the previous ten years (only $7K per year, that's hardly anything) plus inform them that you'll be increasing your rates to them by 20% for future work to cover this new agreement. Don't pick a number out of thin air, though, try to figure out your actual loss of potential. Show them the calculation.
Make it formal and professional. It sounds crazy, but when you consider that they are asking you to sign these rights away FOR FREE, I would say that also is crazy.
- that sounds a tad extrememonospaced
- Yeah, I did start by saying 'crazy idea'!nb
- :D hopefully it doesn't get to this pointmonospaced