What is a fair price?

Well, I found a piece of artwork that would work just perfectly as part of my new company logo. The artist's website indicated that his work was available for license, and so I e-mailed him with an inquiry.

The piece is a flower - a rose - that has been digitally manipulated into a mandala form (here's a quick description of a mandala from wiki: In practice, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern which represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective.)

The piece is very cool - it has a lot of symbolic meaning that ties in not only to the company name but also into my goals and desires. It's a piece that truly is a perfect fit in my opinion.

Anyhow, I described my current situation to the artist. I said I'd like to use the piece in a logo and of course anywhere that logo could be found (perhaps business cards, stationary, etc down the road a ways.) I also mentioned that my current project is not for profit and that while I may turn the company into a commercial venture down the road it isn't one currently.

He replied that the cost for using the piece in a non-commercial way was $100 (he also added that if I didn't think that way fair I could offer a price that was fair to both of us...). I'm not against paying $100 for the piece, in fact I'd have no problem with it except for one particular statement he made - "If you decide to use the piece in a commercial manner, we'll have to negotiate a significantly higher price."

Significantly higher? Er...I really like the piece and all - and I have no doubt it took anywhere from 5-10 hours. I know most artists value their time at $20-30 an hour, so I have no problem paying $100 or so. I'd expect to pay more if I was asking for exclusive rights to the image, but I'm not (he mentioned that he has licensed the piece to someone else and uses it himself for his own company - but they are completely unrelated to software design and therefore there should be no conflict.)

So what is a fair price? If I was hiring an artist outright to make me a logo I'd expect to pay $20-30 an hour - but then I'd also expect to *own* the piece afterwards and have exclusive rights to it. My thoughts as of now are $100 is a fair *if and only if* I had the rights to use the piece in a commercial endeavor (keep in mind that's still not including exclusive rights.)

I'm awaiting a response to hear what the "significantly higher" price actually is. In the meantime, I'm just wondering what is fair. This is my first time licensing others work and/or paying for art.

If you're not happy with the price, terms, or having non-exclusive rights, walk away. I'm sure you could find an artist to do something with exclusive rights for cheaper.

The "significantly higher" price will be based on how much he thinks he can milk your prospective commercial company for, plus headroom for negotiation.

just send a reply which says that a reasonable price for you is $150 for commercial use (ie. you own the rights)..
if he agrees, then it's all good, if not, then just say that you'll hire someone else..

Yeah tell him you are a one man band, mouths to feed, crap car or whatever and make him an offer and say you can't go any higher, it's more than you can afford anyway blah blah and see if he takes it. Go a bit lower than you "real" price you are prepared to pay in case of haggle. Get a proper "license" statement from him saying you can use it for whatever (but not resell it).

This 'hiring of someone else' puts artists against the wall, they either have nothing or a mere little bit, but as long as they'll accept little bits, they never get anywhere, whereas when they turn such an offer down they also get nowhere.

Truth is, there are kazillions of potential artists around the world and even more with no artistic skills at all who can nonetheless still produce nice stuff with the aid of the right tools: Photoshop and similar tools make it all so easy. This all puts the position of real artists in danger. While I once read this funny story about the development of C++ being a treat to commercial C-developers (who'll expect a horde of competition at the horizon), the same can be said about artistic tools, both graphical and audio tools.

The artist is simply telling you that he feels the work is worth a lot if you need it commercially. So although unlikely, offer the price you want to pay, but only for exclusive use. Remember he has to make a living too, and if he has only 10 items of work to sell you just paid very little for 10% of his stock! If you get what I mean.

Also note, there will be another piece of artwork out there for you, which fits the bill, but how much time (time is money) would you allow yourselve to spend looking? Factor that into your price offer.

Anything is only worth what the market will pay. Perhaps he has already sold it to another company, if you claim exclusive rights, what is he going to do about that? How would the alternate company react? Perhaps he will rip you hand off? Who knows?

Be prepared to lose it and you will probably get it.

You say that it would be perfect for "part of" your company logo. You may be better hiring someone to do a proper design based on the elements you need exactly, then there is no issue with licenses and the like and you can pre agree a price. Make sure you like their work (and get proof of their ability first).

IPete2.

Just my 10ps worth.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. Truth be told, I am poor, and I do have some other priorities as to where my money should go so I can't justify spending a whole lot.

I should add that this guy isn't an artist by trade - he's actually a psychotherapist and part time photographer. The piece of art in question is a digitally manipulated photo. He also sells prints of some of his photo's and I'm sure makes a fair amount as a therapist so I don't feel quite so inclined to offer as much as I would if artwork was the guys sole mean of income.

A question of curiousity: What is a fair hourly rate for an artist? I know this can vary widely, but what do you think would be an offer (if I need to seek out someone else) that wouldn't be insulting.

Sculpture,

You could ask for a 'deal' - you know I have £50 can you do this for me? Thanks!

Artists vary greatly in hourly rates too, where do you reside?

What exactly do you need, maybe I or someone here can help?

IPete2.

Business logos (corporate brands) are expensive... hours spent on the actual design might be low, but the price is usually high. I remember when finnish bank changed it's name to "Merita" some 10 years the cost of the logo was something like 150000 € and it looked like "bread gone bad"... and very soon after that the bank merged together with another bank and guess what? The logo & name changed again...



IMO the logo was way overworked and "rendered"... and it was unusable in B&W too. But hey, if someone is fool enough to pay can you blame the designer not doing his job? :) [you can, but he's too busy to laugh while driving his new Porsche to hear you]

Yeah, ask for money that's waiting for you anyway. Banks have more bags of money to spend than an indie programmer. In addition, what do banks know? They know money, if they know stuff about logos they would've made one themself..

Well, here is the piece in question followed by my attempt at making something like it (which took me about an hour and a half in Paint Shop Pro 4 (aka Archaic software!))

The piece I'm considering purchasing (colored by me, original is various shades of white)



And here's my attempt at something similar:


Admittedly I'm not all that happy with my piece. I like the 'shape' much better with his piece, and I also need the center area to be very light as it is in the original piece (of course I can do this to mine, but it still doesn't look quite right.) Considering I'm far from an artist, and considering I was using really old paint software (no layers, even) and managed to whip up my example in 90 minutes, I can't see spending more than $100 on his piece.

Is it ok to blatantly rip-off his work instead of paying to use the original? I don't mean that as a veiled criticism, I'm genuinly curious.

Well, would you consider my piece a "blatant rip-off"? I don't - it's in the same vein but it's definitely not a copy. Also, his piece wasn't originally colored, so the similarities aren't quite as close as they may seem.

I agree - unless he has a patent on anything that looks vaguely flower-like, your piece is well in the clear.

How long is a piece of string?

for some art - a great deal of skill and painstaking work goes in to its creation. There you will have a solid labor cost and that will largely be determined by the artist.

Above that, the value of the art is purely in the eye of the beholder. . . like any reasonable person, an artist will want as much money as they can possibly get for their work, but more often than not will have to settle for what people are prepared to pay them, which could be a huge amount if the artist has enough kudos.

Depends if we're going by the image or the intent.

When you say things like

on a public forum, lawyers can hear tills ringing. You'd better hope he's not a litigous guy because regardless of the similarity in the images or not, you just made a legal challenge on copyright grounds a whole lot easier for him.

It's worth what people will pay, or what the artists feels he is happy to take in compensation for losing his work.

As a student I did alot of 30 second life drawing sketches of a woman slowly getting undressed in a roughly 6x8 inch sketchbook. When I moved to the US I ripped out a page and coloured it with some acrylics and had it framed and hung up in a permenant exhibition at a local gallery. It was one of the pieces that sold for $400 and took me about 2 minutes to make and $40 to frame.

I didn't expect anyone to buy it, and didn't really want people buying my paintings so I had quite a high markup, but people still bought 3 of the 12 I had up and I made almost $3000

So at the end of the day its worth what it's worth.

You are ripping it off.
Just pay the $100
For only $100.

If you go corrperate he will have just as much right to money from you if you rip it off or just buy it from him.

BUT the most important thing is
For only $100

This one is nicer!

There is nothing to this other than a kaliedoscope filter on a photo.

Go get a free kaliedoscope filter for PS here:
http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/kaleidoscope.htm

And run a picture of a flower through it. I grabbed some off Google to test and it should give you exactly what you need. All you have to do is use your own picture, or one you have rights to and you will be in the clear.

As I mentioned, I wouldn't mind paying the $100 *except* for the fact that:

A) The piece is already used by himself and another company (although neither company is related to software development)

B) He wants to charge "significantly more" for a commercial use license. I still don't know what significantly more is, but as I mentioned to me the piece isn't worth $500 or something - especially for no exclusive rights.

Thanks for the recommendation Pongo, I figured that's what it was. I tried using the kaliedoscope filter for the Gimp but it kept crashing - the preview worked though and seemed to give me what I wanted.

I seriously don't see how I could be sued for making something similar or something "inspired from" his piece. It's not like others haven't made similar pieces. Anyways, I still intend to try and secure the piece in question but right now there are various things in my life that have higher priority with the very limited amount of money I currently make. Especially considering I'm not doing my current project with the intent of making any money.

I suppose Grey Alien is probably being sued as we speak then by the original Match-3 maker. And any of you others who have a gameplay mechanic that's already been used - watch out!

The point I was making Sculp, is that he has as much chance of getting more monny, if you rip it off or not.
Pay him the $100. Then simply Change it a little tiny bit. And then dont pay him anymore.
But not to pay him $100, which you can afford, for somethiing you think is perfect, is wrong.

The added colour is probably enough. In the end I will reiterate, he has as much right to more money form you if you rip it off or pay the $100. If you are of the opinion that he will not sue you for anymoney, then dont pay him anymore. I wasnt saying he would sue you. I was saying he wouldnt. But that you should payhim the $100

BUT if you dont pay him, you are ripping him off. (Ripping ppl off is not dependent on if they can sue you or not)

I don't think you are ripping him off at all with your inspired pictures, but if you were to pay the $100, modify slightly and use for commercial, as H&K suggests, you would be ripping him off and exposing yourself to legal action should he object.

There is a difference between doing something ileagal and ripping him off. Yuo have seen his design, think its perfect, talked a price with him, then decided to make you own design that looks similar. That is ripping him off

Nomens point would be true, except you have already gone into negotioations with the artist. From now on it make no difference if you pay the $100 then change it, or dont pay the $100 and simply copy it. But the right thing to do would be to pay the $100

Well actually, he will be sending me a licensing contract to sign - so I *will* be held accountable for whatever he asks for the corporate licensing cost. That's why I've been considering other options.

Besides, I wouldn't feel right paying him $100 and then using the piece in a manner we hadn't agreed to for that price. (er, that is what you are suggesting, right H&K?)

I still disagree with the premise that I'm ripping him off anyway. I didn't contract the work in the first place. I saw this piece on a website, found out who made it, and considered licensing it from him. Saying that making something similar is ripping him off is like saying making a game that has mechanics similar to another game out there is "ripping them off," or writing music that hints at your influences is "ripping them off." There's a difference between blatant copyright infringement and simply being inspired by a piece.

I'm not sure but there may be other legal ramifications with using the piece as part of a logo, as I intend to do, that have to do with trademark issues. I've got to look into that.

Uh... use a "flower" for a software company is actually..... weird.

And this one is far complex and not easy to remember for me...

Well, that in and of itself was not the entire logo. Regarding it being weird or unconventional - yes, I suppose it is. So are my aspirations. So is my choice to use Lisp. Is there something inherently wrong with that?

No, you want to not pay him the $100.

I wasnt saying that. What I was saying is that atm for the corperate image, it is just as wrong to make your own version of his image, as it would be to pay him $100 and then make your own version of his image.
But morraly its better to pay him $100. Obviously this will change it you sign a contract.

If you make your own image based on the idea of a flower and kaleidoscope,... no problems. This has been done before and would not get you in trouble providing you have the rights to the original flower picture.

If you were to pay this guy for a non-commercial use, and then use it for commercial use, it would be the same as if you never paid him in the first place, even if you modify the image.

The only two options I see are to either pay outright for the exclusive rights or build your own, and I would lean HEAVILY towards building your own.

I'm going to grab a newer version of the Gimp when I get a chance and see what I can turn out.

I don't have the money for Photoshop atm. :(

On top of everything else this whole issue has me questioning the logo design I was going to go with in the first place XD. I've been trying to be more decisive as of late (indecision is one of my bigger flaws) - bah.

Well, I've discussed things further with him and think I will be purchasing a "non-commercial" use license for the time being, with the option of upgrading it later.

I redid my logo too - got rid of the color (I didn't realize how much I borked the image by adding color.) I made a few small changes to the original, and it now looks perfect.

Anyhow, thanks for all the advice everyone. And I apologize for getting defensive - I was just upset because I felt like I was being attacked despite my desire to "do the right thing" (hence the creation of this thread in the first place.)

All I've got to say is I'm glad that my MUD won't require all that much art - dealing with artists and art costs is more of a pain than I thought ;) (okay, it's not that bad but I was used to working with friends for free back when I was younger. Of course - we never really got much of anything accomplished, either, hehe.)