Why ‘Guns for Hire’ Should Scrutinize ‘Work for Hire’ Provisions

You’re a gun for hire. No, not in the “John-Wayne-with-spurs-clinking-down-a-tumbleweed-path” kind of gun for hire…more in the “you’re-brought-in-to-handle-the-tough-stuff” vein. For example, Epiphany, an up-and-coming clothing company based in Taos, New Mexico, needed consistent branding and attention, in order to attract the kinds of customers they wanted. They could design clothing, but designing a solid marketing campaign was way over their head. So Epiphany hired Maybeth and her Miami-based Maximum Impact Marketing firm to help. Epiphany provided Maybeth with a detailed agreement that covered the work to be performed, the cost, “work for hire” provisions, and intellectual property rights. Maybeth created several proposed logo designs, wrote the copy for the Epiphany website (which MIM also developed), and worked out a strategy for attracting customers that included local PR. Things started to go awry when Maybeth used one of Epiphany’s discarded logo designs, and received an angry letter from Epiphany…something about “infringing intellectual property rights.” Then Epiphany threatened a lawsuit when it saw the exact website layout (and nearly exact design) on a competitor’s website. The situation…