Well, DanStrikers brings up something I wasn’t aware of in this area. We’ve done many signs with logos for ‘Harley’, ‘Ford’, Chevy’ and numerous other big name local companies, also insurance firms and so on. We always got their art department or someone [higher than an artist] to sign off & date the final drawings. I always thought that was adequate. Holy Guano, I could be in a lot of trouble.
Now this brings to mind something that just happened to us about two months ago. A local real estate company changed their name. It was kind of a catchy name and the logo [he said he designed] was real nifty. In fact his whole advertising package looked really too nice for this guy to have done it himself. However, even though I know he was too cheap to have it done elsewhere I had to take him on his word.
Anyway, after haggling over prices, sizes and so forth, he said he would get back to me. Well, out of sight, out of mind, but later I saw someone else in that filed that said this first guy was moving forward. I then called him and he said he wasn’t because of some problems that he couldn’t go into. Turns out, he stole the ideas from a real estate company based in Canada. I looked it up on the Internet, and sure enough it was their logo to a ‘TEE’. Haven’t heard anything yet, but in this case, regardless of who does the work for this guy… if he gives you artwork camera-ready, electronic files or pictures and you have NO clue [honestly], and he signs off on it… are you still held accountable ??
How can I possibly know about every copyright throughout the world ??
: