: Can backdrop design be resold I created a backdrop design for a magician. The design was created specifically for his show. He has other magician friends that like the backdrop and wish to

@Speyer780

You are actually in a good situation here. What often happens in these deals is that Marvin the Magnificent would hand off your background art to his buddies and they would be altering it willy-nilly without you. This guy is honestly coming to you and offering you work from his friends. Great!

The first rule of work is sign a contract. So you should have had a contract with Marvin stating what you were creating (the art), for whom (him, and not him and his buddies), for what usage (the background of his stage show, and not his letterhead, for example), and who owns the copyrights to that sole and specific work of art (usually him after he's paid you).

If the other magicians are coming to you either directly or through him asking for variants, great! Draw up contracts for each of them. Depending on how much variation they want from the original image, you can offer them a discount from what you charged Marvin (I'm making up numbers for sake of argument: if you charged Marvin 0, Zelda the Amazing who wants "exactly Marvin's background but blue instead of red" might be charged , but Frannie the Fantastic wants "Marvin's background with stars instead of planets and in stripes instead of random," so her charge would be ), or you can say "I charge a flat fee of 0 for every background."

What you must not do is work for free.

Even if Marvin is your blood brother and you did the background for him out of the goodness of your heart, Zelda and Frannie are clients, and you should charge them accordingly.

Do not let them bully you into free work. You could offer to barter (they do your kid's birthday party in exchange for you doing the background), but that should be written into the contract.

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@Alves566

If he's okay with it and there's nothing in a contract saying otherwise then I don't see the problem. Charge for the revisions and be happy you just got yourself some new clients. If it's a decent person you might talk to him about the billing, see if you can work directly with those other magicians and give him a % referral fee.

I'd explain to him that it'll be easier in the long run if you can work directly with them so he doesn't have to play middle man. And if he then refers any other magicians (or anyone else) the deal is already in place.

Now if he's just trying to make you do revisions for free and cut you out, then forget that entirely. But you shouldn't be doing revisions for him for free in the first place. So either way you should be getting paid.

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