What action would you take?
 

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for this as it's related to non adult activities.

Anyways I was asked to create a logo for a haulage company and I created one for them. They turned around and said they didn't like it and asked for changes to be made...a week after I first showed it to them. I went to work on it again and sent it to them.....didn't hear anything back for over two weeks until a couple of days ago I witness a big rig as I was driving and lo and behold there is my logo (the original one I created) on the side of the truck. I knew one of the drivers (who was the one that referred me to them) about the logo and he says the boss told him that another company created the logo. I called him up and had it out on the phone with the guy who still insists that another company created the logo. I told him I still have the original .psd files etc. but I think that flew over his head and still won't change his position that someone else created it.

Anyways what I would like to know is the best way to go after this guy. I heard something about DMC notices or something like that but I'm not sure if this is covered by it or where to go to contact them.

Any ideas?

At this stage I think I want to forego payment and make the fucker take it down off all his rigs which will cost him a pretty penny or two more than if he had acted accordingly.

Any advice? Cheers.

If he hasn't paid you, then I'd contact a lawyer.

What GG said.Also try and get a photograph of the rig and your logo.

Time to hire a lawyer

A lot of whack shit happens in the adult biz, but ten times as much whack shit, broken contracts, outright fraud, and lost money happens in mainstream brick and mortar business.

Small broken contracts are epidemic in mainstream. I lost tens of thousands of dollars in my mainstream businesses from broken contracts.

The absolute worst are small contracts with 'friends' or 'friends of friends'.

Adult is a dream by comparison.

go and set fire to one of their trucks with the new logo...

Thats quite tempting now that I have a few beers in me.

I don't get some people and how they try and save a couple of bucks. A lawyer it is. Fuck the payment for work done - if I can they won't be using that logo on their trucks.

Having him wake up to a Horses head in his bed should do the trick.. At least so i heard ;)

Dude, a lawyer is an expensive and difficult way to deal with a small contract.

In general, a problem has to be worth a minimum of $10,000 to make getting a lawyer worthwhile.

The threat of a lawyer, or of small claims court, is much more practical.

You probably will end up spending $30,000 if you seriously want to get them to take down painted logos. I've seen really silly small cases like this explode into HUGE legal bills.

Your best bet is to send a letter to the person who was your original contact, ideally with a photo of the logo on the truck. Tell them you will file a claim in small claims court if they don't pay you, and that you will force them to take it off all their trucks if they don't pay in full. (which, you are correct, will be an expense greater than the cost of the contract.)

Reasonable threats are the most effective tool you can use.

As a designer myself, I would be absolutely fuming over this! It doesn't cost allot of $$ to retain a lawyer or maybe you already have one on retainer...... Maybe it can be resolved by a simple letter written by an attorney on your behalf.

Jeez, sorry your going thru this....

Very good advice! This is what I would do.

call the newspapers and tell him he molested you when you were young....

call his company and tell all the employees he is under investigation for child porn and they will need to come and testify if they have seen anything.


call his customers and do the same thing.

call his wife and family if he has one and do that too


fuck him like he has fucked you

after all that... get really mean..


enough said

|knockout|

at least have a attorney send a letter to him
this way it keeps your options open if you decide to sue in a year or so

if you feel that company makes decent money ... sue
if they are on their ass get a few cans of spray paint and settle it yourself

one cool thing, and this is very true for the adult buisness
someone thats fucking you today might not have a pot to piss in
but 4 years from now ???

It's amazing what a baseball bat can do to knee caps. :)

I have to agree with spookyx to a small extent (48%) and with LowryBigwood (52%) to a bigger extent.

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All these suggestions seem to be good ones... I do web design as part of my main business I always give customers a preview of their logo on a password protected page which I give them a login to.. (yes they can download but I can track that they logged in .. I also place a water mark over the log with my name so they'd have to practicly redesign it to get it to work.

Here's the deal. If you are 100% sure you are in the right, I would do this:

Find the truck again, take a picture (real film is better than digital for this).

Backup for psd files to two different forms of media for later reference.

Send them a registered letter with an invoice IN FULL for all work you have done. Indicate in the letter that you have all of the proof required by law to show that you are the creator of the image, and as such, you are willing to take all needed action (including collection and / or legal action) to get paid for you work. You will no longer accept "we won't use it anymore" as they have used it in public already. Make sure that they understand that they are liable for not only the original costs of the work, but ALL collection costs for payment, including any legal costs that may be incurred. As someone else has mentioned, than can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and I am sure they would not want to lose that.

If they are still stubborn, pay a lawyer a couple of hundred dollars to send the same letter.

Then file in court. Depending on where you are, you might have a small claims (depending on the amount you are looking at) that you can use before you go the "big expense" route). If you can get a judgement there, you can move it to collection... then the real fun starts.

Good luck with it.

Alex

Raw Alex that rocks! Thanks for that!
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Nice advice RawAlex. I'll follow your advice all the way. Cheers.

RawAlex advice is excellent keep us inform in what happen with this!!

Note to self. Don't mess with Alex even if he is loosing weight.

Just make sure in the letter that you don't mention anything specific about the proof such as PSDs. Maybe he doesn't know what that means but maybe he's a got a kid in school that can fudge up a new PSD pretty quickly.

The general rule is never give an enemy information when it can be avoided.

Well I followed your instructions to the "t" and lo and behold the guy called me up this morning apologising about the "misunderstanding" and said to call around today to pick up my check :)

Nice stuff Alex.

Sweet. |thumb

It's not easy to remain calm and collected when someone is sticking a rusty pole up your ass. I'm glad to hear that you followed Alex's sound advice rather than burning a rig and getting thrown in jail.