The Business of Freelance Illustration - Contracts and Rights

This lecture began by explaining what contracts are, which are basically, a legal document that outlines the project specifications, terms of payment, the rights, credit and contact information. The lecture described the aim of contacts, and gave a brief overview of what you should do when you get a contract.

We then went over each item that would be on a contract in more detail, for example, project specifications, terms, a kill fee, rights transferred and credit. It also explained some very important dos and don'ts when you get a contract and when coming up with a contract.

We then moved onto rights, and explained what rights are, and the different type of rights. A list of things to look out for was also given, along with a list of things that you should never, ever let your client have, i.e. full copyright for any of your work, get full reproduction rights, get the right to sublicense your work or get original works of art.

The legal side of illustration is something I knew hardly anything about, so I found this lecture very useful, and has helped a lot with my understanding of how the business side works.