Protecting Artists Rights on Fiverr

[jessejayjones]

Greetings! I am a professional animator and artist of 5 years, and I’m here on Fiverr just to make a little extra money outside of my regular job.



I have some concerns about artists potentially being taken advantage of on this website and I would just like to discuss some of my personal concerns and thoughts on the matter.



It’s no secret that businesses, companies, and individuals LOVE using Fiverr to help promote their businesses. There’s a lot of talented individuals on here doing great work for dirt cheap! This is fine for simple things like birthday cards or art just for fun, but where my concerns come in is how businesses use artists’ work for their own profit, while paying the artist as little as possible for the work ($5 - $20). According to Fiverr’s terms of service, a buyer may do whatever they wish with the work produced, which means they own to copywrite to it, and may use it for print, billboard, and selling your work, so while the artist gets paid $4 (minus Fiverr’s rather large 20% commission) the buyer could be potentially getting rich off of your work! I’ve even seen schemes where people will get logo design work for $100, and come on to this site and get an unknowing artist to do it for 5 bucks, netting them a sweet $95 profit for no work!



Fiverr states that buyers own the work, UNLESS you specify otherwise in your gig. I suggest ALL artists on Fiverr practice these steps:

• On your gig, explicitly state that the material produced may NOT be sold or used commercially, unless rights to the works are purchased separately (charge what you think is fair for this, because remember, this is our years of training, practice, and schooling they are purchasing. Not just the artwork itself.)
  
  
• Place watermarks on your work! Watermarks! Watermarks! Watermarks! Use your e-mail, your website, or your Fiverr username. State on your gig that these may not be removed, unless rights to the artwork are purchased. This will do two things: one, keep people from stealing your artwork and selling it, and two, will drive more traffic to your gig and get you more work! I highly suggest this practice.
  
  
  
• State that any violation of these terms could result in civil action taken against them… I haven’t had this happen to me yet, so I don’t have any experience filing court claims. If anyone does have any experience on this, PLEASE let me know! I would love to hear someone else’s experience in this matter!
  
  
  
  -Use image searching services like http://www.tineye.com/ to see if your artwork has popped up anywhere it’s not supposed to. Look up book titles, or businesses you have worked with to see if they are using your work without your permission. Remember, they OWN your work, UNLESS you state otherwise in your gig… which you should!
  
  
  
  That’s all for now. Just some suggestions from a professional artist on the subject. I’m going to start practicing these methods as well, which stupidly, I have not been doing. I hope this helps some new as well as experienced artists, and if you have any thoughts on the subject, things to add, or mistakes I have made, please add to the discussion! This is a great community, and I have been having a blast working on people’s projects here, and look forward to continuing to do so! 😃
  
  
  
  Thank you for your time,
  
  Jesse

[teenytinypress]

The same thing happens to writers. I think the best strategy is to be careful in creating your gigs so that you are only doing what you feel is fair for $5.

[seemydeath]

That’s fine and dandy, how will you enforce your logic. Say your tinyeye search reveals your artwork plastered all over the place than what? You going to spend 60k in court for a $5 dollar image? You going to sue Fiverr to because they took $1 for your work?



If you don’t feel comfortable posting work for such a low price. The choice is easy. Truthfully no one is flipping Fiverr services. As a whole, being truthful here is Fiverr is a joke on most other design sites. I design on 99designs, Envato and a few others and no top designer is taking Fiverr seriously. Most on Fiverr have day jobs, they don’t rely on fiverr as serious income. Fiverr is a social community that supports each other and enjoys offering weird and unique service you can’t get elsewhere. That is what makes Fiverr incredible. Sorry went off on a tangent. If your worried about copyright issues I guarantee you are going to have issues here.



That being said. Look forward to seeing your work.

[rossonomous]

In my opinion, it simply comes down to the fact that if people are happy to sell their services on Fiverr for the desired amount, then they are indeed happy.



Ultimately, they accept the terms and conditions upon signing up, so if they click that “register” button, then it’s settled.



But as said previously, if you are worried about your work being used, then you will just have to stay worried. Just the way that the site works.

[seemydeath]

Reply to @vedmak: Yeah I wish I could take that statement back. I just got messaged to see if I can complete a gig for them. They took the gig and don’t know how to finish it…lol what ya gonna do

[pakarfiver]

😉

[jessejayjones]

@vedmak @seemydeath Wow! Thank you for the well thought out responses! I really appreciate hearing your guys’ perspective on the subject. Very helpful, and I’m sure others will find it helpful as well. Thank you so much! 😃

[wackytoaster]

That´s defenitely a part I should add that to my gigs. I´ll wait for Level 1 though so I can sell the rights to use it extra. I don´t mind if I draw something for 4 bucks where others get 20-30 bucks for it.

But if someone wants sell it, I´ll just make an extra option with 10 bucks and I´m ok with that.

[Guest thuyta]

This is definitely a very concerning issue. I’m an artist myself and the last thing I want is to be taken advantage of 😦

[Guest mrspanda]

jessejayjones said: Place watermarks on your work! Watermarks! Watermarks! Watermarks! Use your e-mail, your website, or your Fiverr username. State on your gig that these may not be removed, unless rights to the artwork are purchased. This will do two things: one, keep people from stealing your artwork and selling it, and two, will drive more traffic to your gig and get you more work! I highly suggest this practice.

 

Hate to say it, but I refuse to buy any artwork with watermarks on it. Sorry, I'm not going to pay you to advertise your art for you. If I wanted watermarks, I'd go use some free stock images. I actually steer clear of artists that charge me that extra 20 bucks to remove watermarks... because for every artist that will charge to remove it, there is 5 other artists willing to do the work without watermarking it.

 

There's a very very popular artist here that is my go-to guy for artwork- he is very talented and in high demand. I am purchasing artwork from him for a Tarot deck I am creating and he isn't watermarking OR charging me extra for rights. He knows what I'm doing with the art and he knows I plan on selling it without giving him a percentage of the commission.

[johnmakay]

Well am a new guy on fiverr, and am into business management &graphics… Regarding your point there are alot of ways you can personalized your products without affecting the customer… Like in graphic…you may put your registered name/email address faintly (upside down) at the background without the customer noticing…let them use it anywhere, they advertise your product for you. Anybody that stumble upon the address and really need the product will contact you through the email and you will charge whatever amount you like because the transaction will be outside Fiverr.

[Guest mrspanda]

johnmakay said: .you may put your registered name/email address faintly (upside down) at the background without the customer noticing.

 

Are you kidding? I would NEVER purchase from someone that did that. Might as well use freeware.

[jessejayjones]

UPDATE:



I have since removed my watermark policy. Don’t do it. People don’t like it. I learned the hard way! 😉



Cheers!

[mashiro_r]

The post quite old but I really found it interesting and helpful.
Thanks all !

[geiren]

That’s fine and dandy, how will you enforce your logic. Say your tinyeye search reveals your artwork plastered all over the place than what? You going to spend 60k in court for a $5 dollar image? You going to sue Fiverr to because they took $1 for your work?

 

 

 

If you don’t feel comfortable posting work for such a low price. The choice is easy. Truthfully no one is flipping Fiverr services. As a whole, being truthful here is Fiverr is a joke on most other design sites. I design on 99designs, Envato and a few others and no top designer is taking Fiverr seriously. Most on Fiverr have day jobs, they don’t rely on fiverr as serious income. Fiverr is a social community that supports each other and enjoys offering weird and unique service you can’t get elsewhere. That is what makes Fiverr incredible. Sorry went off on a tangent. If your worried about copyright issues I guarantee you are going to have issues here.

 

 

 

That being said. Look forward to seeing your work.

No, you do not stifle someone that was abused. Misusing someone’s intellectual property is illegal. You cannot sit here among us all and claim that they should expect it to be misused because they offered their work at a low price. What you are proposing is dangerous and ultimately a very terrible thing for you to say, you should be very ashamed of yourself. NO one needs to expect someone to abuse their intellectual property. Whether it’s cheap or expensive, people disregard copyrights on both spectrums. IF they took that to court, just because they sold it for $5 and (legal teams aren’t always 60k clearly); sued the person, doesn’t mean that they won’t gain more in the outcome if they win. That’s the point of a court case on terms of compensation, to gain more than you payed. If you had a good case to win and gain compensation, you can bet I will take that choice seemydeath. Do not stifle someone on these forums like this.

OP, in general there is a lack of control on this platform it seems. There isn’t necessarily as much monitoring of images you get privately sent after a transaction to determine vigorously on Fiverr, Google Images, image platforms like Burst, Pexels, Adobe images and so much more, or quotes that are copywritten, compared to sites that post them where they are checked individually, sometimes those can get overlooked, but on here there is basically no protection. Do not buy your artwork on Fiverr if you want want to be safe from court cases if you intent to use the artwork given for personal gain means; from what I very roughly can tell. For people stealing seller’s artwork and posting it on here; I would go ahead and report them. Even inform of possible lawsuits if you own those copyrights; if you don’t appreciate their stealing it especially. When they post it, you have much more likelyhood actions will be taken, but from what I can see there are people out there doing things like this and getting away with it.

[lloydsolutions]

No, you do not stifle someone that was abused. Misusing someone’s intellectual property is illegal. You cannot sit here among us all and claim that they should expect it to be misused because they offered their work at a low price. What you are proposing is dangerous and ultimately a very terrible thing for you to say, you should be very ashamed of yourself. NO one needs to expect someone to abuse their intellectual property. Whether it’s cheap or expensive, people disregard copyrights on both spectrums. IF they took that to court, just because they sold it for $5 and (legal teams aren’t always 60k clearly); sued the person, doesn’t mean that they won’t gain more in the outcome if they win. That’s the point of a court case on terms of compensation, to gain more than you payed. If you had a good case to win and gain compensation, you can bet I will take that choice seemydeath. Do not stifle someone on these forums like this.

OP, in general there is a lack of control on this platform it seems. There isn’t necessarily as much monitoring of images you get privately sent after a transaction to determine vigorously on Fiverr, Google Images, image platforms like Burst, Pexels, Adobe images and so much more, or quotes that are copywritten, compared to sites that post them where they are checked individually, sometimes those can get overlooked, but on here there is basically no protection. Do not buy your artwork on Fiverr if you want want to be safe from court cases if you intent to use the artwork given for personal gain means; from what I very roughly can tell. For people stealing seller’s artwork and posting it on here; I would go ahead and report them. Even inform of possible lawsuits if you own those copyrights; if you don’t appreciate their stealing it especially. When they post it, you have much more likelyhood actions will be taken, but from what I can see there are people out there doing things like this and getting away with it.

@geiren You are replying 2 years later. Maybe you didn’t notice.

The moderators don’t like to see old posts resurrected.

Enjoy the forum. 🙂