There is far too much fear-obsession over ownership.
Making a Logo for Coke:
- If I am on Staff the work is definitely owned by Coke. That is the essence of Work For Hire
- If I am a freelancer Coke probably stipulate upfront that they get the whole thing and pay accordingly. I agree or I don’t agree and get the job or not. They want me to say yes so they pay properly (i.e. not $15, $50 or even $500) so I am happy to do their logo and hand it over.
In both cases, I can always say “I made that logo”. Unless they also asked and I agreed to sign a ‘gag order’ in which case any sane business will pay even more money seeing bragging rights are gold in the creative world so not being able to say “I done that”, is limiting future work which is the business damaging the freelancer so they compensate accordingly.
A wise business like Coke knows that exclusivity is important in a logo but not necessarily in a piece of music (note they often use hits or songs that sound like they could be hits seeing no one want to pay) so they make it clear what the terms are and pay accordingly.
A Brief from Coke would never read like a BR here that goes
For $5 you will make me a clone of a John Williams movie score and I will own 100% of everything so I am king and you are the sucker
and yet on Fiverr, and in other freelance spaces, we see ~10 of these each per day.
Ownership is not the necessity that people misconstrue it to be (unless they are actively trying to be mean). If I write a cool song that a record label thinks might go #1, they ask me to license it’s usage to them so they can put it on the radio, make a video and get it selling like hotcakes. They pay me well for this. Maybe not 80% of their take as they have a lot of expenses to get it to #1 but enough that I am happy to do it, not just once but again.100% of nothing = 0, but 20% of a million = hell yeah!
In the case of my logo, once the license agreement is there, I cannot do things to damage the usage of the work. So no matter what the terms of making a Logo for Coke, I can’t sell it to Pepsi or the Army for The Liberation of Satan as that is injurious to the purposes for which the work was commissioned.
However, if it is a piece of music, I can do whatever I like that is not in conflict with the terms of the contract that was agreed, paid, and fully honored by the purchaser. That means that technically I can sell the same piece of music to Enya, Ramones, Cannibal Corpse, and P!ink. they can all be having hits with my same piece of music. That could be fun LOL
If you don’t want to pay to prevent that, that is on you, not on the person who is just making a living from their skills.
