I’ve had a few people ask me whether they own the copyright in works created by someone hired on Fiverr. This is a very important question because you want to own all of the creative work in your business – it’s a part of your brand and an intangible asset. The default rule is that the creator owns the copyright in the work he/she created unless he/she enters an agreement that says otherwise.
Remember, I’ve said that you absolutely must peek at the Terms of Use or Terms of Service for any social media network? This also goes for online marketplaces like Fiverr, elance (now Upwork), Etsy or anyplace where you may be sourcing designs or other creative work for your business.
Fiverr lays out everything we need to know about copyright ownership in their Terms of Use. At the time of this post, there terms state:
Unless clearly stated otherwise on the seller’s Gig page/description, when the work is delivered, and subject to payment, the buyer is granted all intellectual property rights, including but not limited to, copyrights for the work delivered from the seller, and the seller waives any and all moral rights therein. The delivered work shall be considered work-for-hire under the U.S. Copyright Act. In the event the delivered work does not meet the requirements of work-for-hire or when US Copyright Act does not apply, the seller expressly agrees to assign to buyer the copyright in the delivered work. All transfer and assignment of intellectual property to buyer shall be subject to full payment for the Gig and the delivery may not be used if payment is cancelled for any reason. For removal of doubt, in custom created work (such as art work, design work, report generation etc.), the delivered work shall be the exclusive property of buyer, and seller assigns all rights, title and interest in the delivered work. Note: some Gigs (including for custom created work) charge additional payments (through Gig Extras) for commercial use. This means that if you purchase the Gig for personal use, you will own all rights to the delivered work without purchasing the Extra. If you intend to use it for business purposes, you will need to buy the Extra.
In other words, unless the seller specifically states that they retain copyright ownership or they have “personal use only” restrictions then you’re all good and upon payment of the Gig, you’ll own all rights in the work.
Here are three quick + dirty tips for you:
- Triple check the details on the Gig page before you pay and submit your order to see if there is an add-on if you intend to use the work for business use and to see if they say anything about copyright ownership. If they say nothing at all, that is fantastic. This is a classic case of “silence is golden.”
- If the seller states they retainer copyright ownership, then keep shopping around, or
- If you really, really want to work with that seller, then see if he/she provides an add-on to transfer complete ownership. If they do, pay it.
As a bonus, I also recommend taking a screenshot of the Gig page so you have a record of what was stated regarding copyright ownership on the day of your purchase. If the seller changes their rules later on, you’ll have proof of what you relied on when you hired him/her.
Pretty simple, right?
In Legal Quick Start sessions, I work with creative entrepreneurs, innovators and change agents to identify issues like this up front, so that there’s no-second guessing whether they own the creative content in their business or not. The last thing you want is someone claiming rights to your ish down the road because the huge question of “who owns what” wasn’t addressed in the beginning. If you’ve hired someone to design, write, shoot or record something for you and there wasn’t an agreement in place to transfer those rights – that’s a problem. On the flip side, if you’re a creator, and you’re giving all of the rights in your creations away and not charging in alignment with the rights you’re granting clients – that’s a problem. Your creativity is worth something more. There’s no way to teach everything on the blog so that’s why I offer the Legal Quick Start 1:1 opportunity for you to get legal insight and strategic counsel tailored for your business.