Usage of renderings after quitting job

[peterlepeu]

Lets say you want to build a website to start your own business after working as an employee for years. It seems that most people say it's a no-no when it comes to place your images online. Would you agree?

 

How is one suppose to start a business then?

Would you say it's risky to just publish them online and see if the employer says anything in the future?

 

(I did read previous threads. not quite answered though).

 

thanks.

P.

[Chris MacDonald]

I'd say it's absolutely fine provided;

 

1) You give credit where it's due (i.e. building designed by xxx architects)

2) The work isn't bound by a non-disclosure-agreement.

 

Most places wouldn't kick up a fuss as long as it is used as a portfolio and not as blatent advertising for your own company. Keep in mind you produced the work FOR the company, not for yourself. They paid you to do it and they (or their client) will have ownership rights.

[peterlepeu]

2) The work isn't bound by a non-disclosure-agreement.

This I wouldn't know. They refused to give me a copy of the papers I signed when hired.

 

Keep in mind you produced the work FOR the company, not for yourself. They paid you to do it and they (or their client) will have ownership rights.

 

I understand. And that's where it got confusing in other threads.

I really don't want the ownership, meaning the copyright. I want to use them to show what my company is capable of doing because I did such work in the past.

 

As a metaphor, if someone buys a car, he owns it, but everyone knows what the make is because it's displayed on the car (toyota, ford, etc). Shouldn't this apply to our work as well? (It's actually a rhetoric question that comes out of frustration)

[Chris MacDonald]

I can't imagine you showcasing your work in that context being a problem. If it is, deal with it on an image-by-image basis. The chances of someone actually complaining are fairly slim I should imagine. I'm sure some of the other guys here will be able to shed a little more light on it.

[Devin Johnston]

It's a tricky subject, I suppose the best thing to do would be to ask the company if they had a problem with it especially if you think they will be seeing the site at some point. If they won't give their permission then you'd better get started making up some content. However that doesn't mean you can't show that work in private to people as long as they understand who you did the work for and that it's confidential.

[peterlepeu]

I can't imagine you showcasing your work in that context being a problem.

Right, me neither.

ask the company if they had a problem with it

I thought about it, but it's a big company. Knowing them, they won't waste 1 second in replying.

 

I'll just go ahead and use them. I'll write from prison. thanks!

[Zdravko Barisic]

From my point of view, your opinion is not right/legal, at all.

You did work, for your company working in, for 3rd party companies, and want to show that work as your owns?

...

Think twice about that....better spend 6 months on some awesome works, and show that.

That images arent yours at all....

[TomD_Arch]

I understand. And that's where it got confusing in other threads.

I really don't want the ownership, meaning the copyright. I want to use them to show what my company is capable of doing because I did such work in the past.

 

Technically you are not showing work "YOUR" company is capable of doing, you are showing work you produced while working somewhere else. You have to get permission from the company to use images especially if it's going to be online as part of a website, and even then you need to make it very clear where those images came from. It suxs yes, but most places will be reasonable if you ask nicely first. However, if they want to be jerks and you signed something saying they own the rights to anything you produce while in their employ they can prevent you from showing it. If they wont show you the contract you signed proving then post the work and make them force you to take it down legally, which means they will have yo prove in a court you signed a contract.

 

It makes it hard not knowing what country you are in to give good advice. Seems like thsi question is better suited for a lawyer in your country.

[peterlepeu]

I'm an american resident.

 

Technically you are not showing work "YOUR" company is capable of doing, you are showing work you produced while working somewhere else

 

I'm showing work I produced while working somewhere else that I did entirely myself. I'm only talking about the rendering itself, and not the design the rendering is showing. And that's the "product" I'll be showing and selling. Not the design service.

If I start my own company, and I get design input from a client, I am capable of doing exactly the type of work I was doing while hired.

 

As you said, this is a topic for a lawyer. BUT, I thought asking here first. It's always useful to here my peer's opinions.

[DaveC]

Exactly, using the work in a portfolio context for a job application, I can see no problems.

 

Even in a private showing for freelance work, if you are clear you did the work when working elsewhere I can see no problems either.

 

But using work you did for another company is a tricky area.

 

 

 

You could argue their support network, IT infrastructure, software pipelines, materials libraries, team support, client provided assets/models, etc etc, are what made the work you are showing what it really is.

 

Obviously, it may be the case that you worked for company X and wrote the spec for the assets the client might deliver, implemented all the modelling/materials/rendering pipeline, and then output the final images all by yourself... but then again you may not have done.

 

In any case, you worked for someone else and so you have no rights to the work at all, unless it specifically said you did in your contract. I would be surprised if it did in this line of work where your outputs are not widely published in the open media.

 

 

 

I agree it's difficult to start. How do you get experience to start with to get a job?

 

How do you get a client list to have example client work to get freelance work?

 

 

In the end I think for this kind of work then a portfolio of your own work will go just as far as real paid client work. All the best jobs I've ever had are from people noticing my own personal cool work, than other client work I'd already done.

 

 

If you get bites, then when you go to see businesses then show them example previous work in private AND in context alongside your personal work and it won't take them long to understand you are capable of working on client projects as you have in the past examples, AND capable of being creative and doing it yourself in your personal work!

 

Obviously be cautious here to not give away project/client specifics when showing other work, as that will just make you look like you don't care for contracts/NDA/image copyrights and potentially lose you work!

 

Show capability but not details.

 

 

 

And in future with your new personal clients, if you want to show off the work then ask to enter into appropriate contracts saying you can show off what you have done for them in future. Ie, you retain some ownership for showing what you have done on behalf of them.

 

Copyright permissions on creative work are quite complex, but I don't think ownership rights are automatic if you are doing work on behalf of someone else!?

 

Dave

[Nic H]

i dont think you can use them to start your own business

you could show them to clients but i wouldnt put them online as part of a new venture that may be competing with your previous employer

[RyderSK]

I like this grey zone discussions. Lots of truth in quite few angles.

 

My opinion is, being slightly selfish (beyond assertive norm) doesn't hurt (but I don't condone of unethical behaviour, like outright lying about and hiding info, that actually, infuriates me),

you should foremost care about your future and bussiness, obviously, the rest is past now. So don't tip-toe too carefully around it.

[heni30]

You know what you are capable and that ability ultimately will manifest itself once you get your foot in another door. If it is something you could do on your own and because it is such a grey zone with no right answers, I would go ahead and use it until you get a "cease and desist" order.

 

Also I don't think personal cool stuff is pertinent to show because it was done without restrictions and in reality everything we do is replete with restrictions (not the least of which is time constraints) and our value to clients is how efficiently and creatively we can accommodate these.

 

Bruce Goff once said the most difficult thing he could be asked to do would be to design a house with no program and no budget constraints.

Edited April 8, 2014 by heni30

[peterlepeu]

Dave, that's a nice message. I have to agree with everything you said except for one thing: Our own personal work may be really nice. but I spent months in some images I've done as an employee. I just can't afford to build a portfolio from scratch if I want to show what I want to sell. It's just not possible. (a rendering of a stadium, or a city in dubai, or 10 shots of a store in china...). I'm not in my 20's anymore.

 

Just as an interesting reading, I got this from wikipedia. What I was talking before is what they call "moral rights".

 

Author accreditation:

States that are party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works recognize separately copyrights and moral rights, with moral rights including the right of the actual creators to publicly identify themselves as such, and to maintain the integrity of their work

[Coolhand78]

My thoughts are that if you are using them as a personal portfolio to get a new job working for another company that would be okay, however, if you are wanting to put them up on the internet to promote your new company or yourself as your own entity, then this is where you would be breaching a copyright. You may have created the images but the copyright would be owned by the company you worked for or the client that hired that company to do the work, not you. And without express permission from the owner of the copyright you would be breaching that copyright.

 

If you are wanting content for your website my advice is to get written permission or get rendering with some of your own work... the last thing you would need starting a new company is a much bigger company coming down on you with a copyright infringement lawsuit.

[Zdravko Barisic]

Me, again....I am shore, that for 3 months, you can make a series of very serious and well done renderings. Right?

Than, why you would think even about this?

...

You can always show that work via private Skype, etc...and for good web, the quantity is not so much worth, as quality, believe me...

Good luck!

[peterlepeu1]

(I had to change my username because my posts weren't being published for some reason)

 

Let's say an architect want's to be on his own after working for a company. Does he have to build his own buildings just for portfolio? I think that you can make your buisiness website out of your images, but the time it would take you to make a decent amount of images, with architecture "big" enough to sell to potential clients is probably way too much.

 

I may going too far, but there is what it's called "the Visual Artists Rights Act".

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A

 

I really think it would be a good idea to make it a sticky so others know their rights before getting into a company.

 

Also in this link http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106a

it says

106A . [...] the author of a work of visual art—

 

(1) shall have the right—

 

(A) to claim authorship of that work,

 

All this of course is voided by any type of work-for-hire. Too bad, because I don't care about integrity, just attribution.

[CliveG]

Is there an issue with competition?

 

If you worked for a visualisation company and are setting up a visualisation company then, you may well end up writing us from jail.

 

If it was an architectural company or the like, then as long as there is suitable acknowledgement I'd say you're in the clear.... Heck it's even free advertising for them.

 

I think the main thing is don't post an image and pretend it's all your work if it isn't all your work. If you just did the modelling then be clear as to your contribution and acknowledge others contribution, otherwise ...... Well I don't even care about the legal aspects, morally and ethically you are doing wrong.

 

Nuff said.

[DaveC]

Also I don't think personal cool stuff is pertinent to show because it was done without restrictions and in reality everything we do is replete with restrictions (not the least of which is time constraints) and our value to clients is how efficiently and creatively we can accommodate these.

 

I kind of agree, but every paid job is different too.

 

A business/client probably doesn't care about costs/time for other work they see that you did because they will appreciate that every project is complete with inefficiencies, delays, unknown demands, intricate details that were hugely relevant to customer A, but would be irrelevant to them...

they will only care what your quote says for the work they engage you to complete.

 

So I think creative pieces that show creative competency, alongside technical pieces that show technical competency are useful to have.

 

In the end if you are quite green you might be directly engaging businesses with specific ideas you think are suited specifically to them and showing them concepts, rather than just dropping a portfolio and skills offering on their door mat.

I'd say 50% of the portfolio type work I do is to appeal to certain people I want to talk to and might be the kinda stuff they want to buy off me! Not just generic 'for anyone' work.

 

But it's a tough world out there and I won't pretend it'll work everywhere or is right for everyone! I'd love to have more client work to show people but nearly everything I've ever done is under some form of NDA or another for the last 15 years so I'm pretty stuck with just my own work and putting in only a fraction of the professional work I've done and only showing that in private viewings too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter LePeu, yeah I won't pretend it's easy to do this work in free time. My last big freelance project was just over 1000hrs long and was almost entirely modelling/UV/texturing.

I'm under NDA and I can't really tell anyone what I did or who it was for. It's like a big part of my first year freelancing and I can't tell anyone I've done it. Not really a good start as I feel like I'm back at square one again now but these are just the trials of running your own business vs working for someone!

In the end I still think my own work which I'm sat doing late on evenings will be more valuable to me to get more work in future, than trying to leverage client work into something half-engaging or relevant to entice in new 'green' clients with.

 

 

Maybe it's a bigger thing in the work I've tended to do, but I'd think if I were too ignorant of the discretion expected from the people I did work for then it wouldn't be unsurprising to bump into them in future and lose out on work because of that ignorance.

 

 

In any case, these are just my thoughts. Sometimes just rolling how you want to roll is always best. Go with your gut hehe.

 

And good luck whatever you do... I'm sure you'll be fine if you just keep working away at whatever you put your mind to!