Hello. A little while back, I did some freelance graphic design for a
company that was manufacturing and selling a food item. After sending
out some drafts, the customer stopped responding to e-mails. I just
let it slip, without demanding payment since she insisted that she
didn't like them and I assumed they would not be used. I just found
out that the company is becoming successful - I saw their products in
a store, with my labels on, which I did not receive ANY payment on!
They have blatantly stolen my work, and are selling the products in
several different states!

I hate to get an attorney involved, and I get the feeling that if I
send a bill, it will just get ignore.

Any ideas on what to do? Thanks!

MartyN wrote:
Refer to your contract. Send out the invoice. If they don't pay, get
your lawyer involved.

HTH

Drew

On May 10, 12:41 pm, MartyN <Mart...@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, you could send them a bill and get a lawyer to write a letter
to them stating they must pay the bill to avoid further legal action.
Having a lawyer write a letter wouldn't cost TOO much ; it would of
course be cheaper than filing a lawsuit. It might work. I have a
friend who used this tactic and it got results.

on 10/5/07 5:41 pm, MartyN wrote:


You could get a good copy of the work they're using, attach it to a copy of
the work they ripped off and send them an invoice for the work done to date.
Once they have this they might feel honour bound to pay it [if the invoice
is reasonable]. If they don't pay your invoice, in GB you can then take them
to the small claims court [can you do that in the states?], but for that you
will need proof with dates of your original contract, the work you did,
letters and emails of instructions and where the work went off the tracks
and proof of how alike to your work the final packaging is. You might need
to find out who did the artwork that was used, who printed it and find out
what their instructions were from your client.

All in all it's a lot of bother for one bill. So probably the best thing to
do is only take it as far as the invoice. However, iIrc, once you've raised
an invoice this becomes taxable even if it's not paid.

If you have other work with this client you could simply add a percentage to
their jobs and claw it back that way. A bit like the extra % put on jobs for
really difficult clients: their drag factor.

I've found that getting legal people involved just makes things expensive,
messy and generates deeper feelings of resentment. However at the moment
they haven't paid you and so they're breaching your copyright and making a
profit on it. If this bothers you enough you might have to take legal
advice.

On May 10, 12:41 pm, MartyN <Mart...@gmail.com> wrote:
You may also want to check out your local college law programs... Some
of the universities around here have student law programs where it is
free or very low cost.

"MartyN" <MartyNg@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1178815314.433285.9080@e65g2000hsc.googlegrou ps.com...
| Hello. A little while back, I did some freelance graphic design for a
| company that was manufacturing and selling a food item. After sending
| out some drafts, the customer stopped responding to e-mails. I just
| let it slip, without demanding payment since she insisted that she
| didn't like them and I assumed they would not be used. I just found
| out that the company is becoming successful - I saw their products in
| a store, with my labels on, which I did not receive ANY payment on!
| They have blatantly stolen my work, and are selling the products in
| several different states!
|
| I hate to get an attorney involved, and I get the feeling that if I
| send a bill, it will just get ignore.
|
| Any ideas on what to do? Thanks!

First where are you located.

Depending on the answer to that you would be well advised to file the
paperwork to register your copyrights.
|