Copyrights, Artist/Writer collaborations

IP rights (Intellectual Property) are legal protections granted to creators for their original works. Pretty simple to understand. IP Rights are:

Copyrights (automatically arisen upon creation of the art)

Patents (Usually given out for new inventions, and have to be obtained manually)

Trademarks (Protect brand names, logos, and other symbols used to distinguish goods or services in the marketplace.) etc...

These are the most common IP rights out there, but the one you should care the most about as an artist or writer, or any person in the creative industry, is Copyrights. Here's how it works in the overall look. X artist creates Y piece of art, and if their piece of art is original, meaning it wasn't a copy of another piece of art, then the copyrights for that Y piece of art belong to the X artist. Meaning X can do whatever he likes with that art work. Sell it, market it, share it, put their signature in it, call it their own etc...

But things get quite tricky when it comes to collaborations/partnerships. In this case, one form of art is created by not one artist but more. Such piece of art is a comic/manga. A writer can either pay the artist on the spot, or share the revenue, either way it is important to make things clear about copyright. This piece of work as an entirety belongs to both creators, the illustrated part belongs to the artist while the story and dialouge belong to the writer.

If the artist gets hired to illustrate a comic, then they can choose to make it clear what they allow and what they do not. For example, some artist might choose to sell their art to their costumers for personal usage, or even for marketing use. Illustrations can be sold as merchandise, or shared online, but an artist can demand that the illustration should't be used for personal gain. Same here with comic artist, they can demand that their art should'nt be used outside the comic area (such as, comic books or using illustrations from the comic to market it). An outside use could be, taking illustrations and turning them into stickers, shirts, prints, mugs etc... and selling them without the artist's permission.

In case you're hiring an artist to illustrate your comic, then you're granted an automatic licensing agreement which allows you to share your comic online and print it to sell later. However anything outside of that should be discussed with the artist. Also, just brecause you pay for the art that artists draws, doesn't mean you should't credit them for the work, unless it is stated otherwise in a contract.

While Work For Hire does grants the employer full copyright over the work, you need to keep in mind that when it comes to freelancing work, the artist you're hiring is not your employer. The employer-employee relationship is established through a contract of service. This contract outlines the terms of employment such as; duties and obligations, working conditions , insurance etc... these include things such as paying for the artist trainings and also devices or other elements their work needs.

A freelancer is self employed, and their clients do not own any rights to their work, what they pay for is the art, and in some cases licensing agreements. This relationship can become a Work For Hire in two specific cases;They fall into specific categories, such as a contribution to a collective work. (Usually a comic that has many artist working under the main artist, in this case only the main artist will be credited.) The parties expressly agree in a written and signed agreement that the work shall be considered a work for hire.

There is no need for a contract if you want to share your comic, or print and sell it to the readers, however you need to credit the artist for their part.

If you don't want to credit the artist, want to repurpose the art, sell it in different ways etc... then there's no law telling you not to do that if the other party clearly agrees to it by signing a clearly written contract. That is why, clear communication matters, and it is important to discuss with the artist about the usage of their work in order to warn the artist about potential disagreements. An artist might already have a written 'art using agreement' but it is not their obligation, that is why it is always up to the client to ask the artist.

By no means does this apply to every artist. Some artists will do work for a client without any care of what the client will use it for, but this is how it usually is. I've worked with multiple writers in their projects, and this is how I went about it.

One last thing to mention. An artist cannot print the comic and sell it. Why? Because they did't pay for the licensing agreements to the story. However they can use the illustrations individually to their liking. As for the character designs it can be important to always credit the author for the idea.