My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [52]
I won’t lie to you: It can be tough getting a corporate Goliath to bend to your will if you’re not a household name. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. I’m inspired by Nikki McClure, who has corporations like Patagonia and Seventh Generation calling to license her images for their marketing materials for a limited period of time (meaning Nikki retains her copyrights). And I aspire to be more like Ellen Forney, whose choice to just say no to work-for-hire gigs enables her to publish books like Lust, a collection of illustrations she did for the adult personal ads in The Stranger, an alt-weekly paper in Seattle.
That said, if some high-profile media outlet dangles a well-paid gig with big PIE potential under your nose in exchange for a nonnegotiable work-for-hire contract, who am I to stop you? I’ve certainly taken the bait in the name of helping myself to a piece of the notoriety PIE, as have a number of freelancers mentioned in this book. Maybe you do a handful of pieces for some hotshot client to catapult your portfolio up five notches and then move on to bigger and fairer contracts. A freelancer’s gotta do what a freelancer’s gotta do.
So what’s the big takeaway? Familiarize yourself with the copyrights issues and gotchas of your particular industry and trade. Become so contract-savvy that when you run across a clause deeming your creative masterpieces “the sole property” of your client “in perpetuity,” not to mention “in any media, whether now known or hereafter devised,” you speak up rather than blindly sign all your rights away.
Sites like Nolo.com, KeepYourCopyrights.org, and the online homes of creative arts associations—Recording Artists’ Coalition, American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the like—offer loads of information, including explanations of troublesome copyright language commonly found in freelance contracts. And since copyright language is enough to make anyone’s eyes cross, it’s a good idea to get legal assistance. For low-cost resources, see the sidebar on pages 126-127 and the guide at the back of the book.
When Noncompete Clauses Attack
I understand why some companies like to put noncompete clauses—language prohibiting you from working for their competitors or their own clients—in their freelancer contracts. But that doesn’t make me hate these clauses any less. No freelancer wants to sign away her ability to work for another company. If we wanted shackles, we’d still be someone else’s employee.
That said, there are a number of valid reasons why a company might ask its freelancers to agree to a noncompete: They want to prevent you from sharing their trade secrets with a business rival. Their business revolves around product development, technical innovation, or fresh content, and they want to make sure the star freelancer they’re hiring is giving them an “exclusive” on her ideas, inventions, or creations. Or, they’ve been burned in the past by freelancers poaching their clients and want to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Let’s look at the exclusivity thing first. In some creative circles, it’s taboo to get into bed with your clients’ direct competitors. The editors I work with at my regional daily paper wouldn’t take too kindly to me writing a story on a Pacific Northwest dog dancing convention for them and for one of the local alt weeklies. Editors don’t want to be scooped by a rival, especially at the hands of one of their trusted freelancers. But that doesn’t mean I can’t sell a story on the same topic to a national media outlet or a publication in another region (like Martha Stewart Living, The New York Times, or CNN.com), as long as the story for my local client runs first.
If my regional paper is keeping me busy with a steady