Shameless Self Promotion?

Berry said:
A credit is not enough. Permission must be granted by the Employer who holds the legal copyright assignment for work. If you are a freelancer and have been subcontracted the intellectual copyright is yours unless passed over to the client. Paid employers have no right to claim any ownership or to display anypiece of work without full permission and assignment. If you do, you are in clear legal copyright breach.
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I agree, perhaps I wasn't clear - with permission still give full explanations to how, why, where and who for etc. - never pretend to be soley responsible for a team effort.
 
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Intellectual Property Rights give legal recognition to the ownership of intellectual property. There are several different forms of rights or areas of law giving rise to rights which together make-up intellectual property rights.


An employer automatically owns copyright in work produced by an employee if part of an employee's job is to write or draw. The employer is the first owner of the copyright if the work is produced in the course of employment. If you subcontract part of a research task to a subcontractor or have work done by a student, these people are not employees and you must be careful to ensure that ownership of their work rests with the you as part of their terms of engagement.


Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 Section 11:
Where a literary work (includes computer programmes, dramatic, musical or artistic work) is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary.
 
One that springs to mind is the guy that designed Lara Croft whislt employed at a games company, left the company before she became the iconic figure she is today. I watched a program about it once - poor fella! has no claim to her whatsoever.
 
Ok - so I think we've established I need permission from my boss before displaying my portfolio. Guess in a way i'm lucky I'm inhouse (no pesky third parties to worry about).

So, is there a good way to bring this up, without it sounding like - "I want a new job"
 
Tricky area as every potential client would expect to see the work you have done, so it depends on how reasonable your bosses are. A company I worked for tried to sack me for gross misconduct for displaying work without permission. Hell of a lot of hassle and stress going through that, which is another reason why freelancing rules.
 
SamC said:
Ok - so I think we've established I need permission from my boss before displaying my portfolio. Guess in a way i'm lucky I'm inhouse (no pesky third parties to worry about).

So, is there a good way to bring this up, without it sounding like - "I want a new job"
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Look at this way - If I was your Boss - and you brought this up, I'd be checking my employment law contract for grounds of dismissal ( which I would win by the way! ) and checking out all the other C.V's that I have recently received.

You had better be really shit shot and an absolute goldmine to your Employer, or you've kissed your what career you had down the tubes. Unless you've just won the Lotto.

Anyone sounding like " I want a new job" had better starting applying for Morrisons.

Life sucks, but many fools ever over-estimate their own worth.

If you're that good just hand your notice in.... If you're not then suck it in and live with it.
 
could you not spend some time producing 'pretend' projects of your own based 'loosely' on real life briefs you've worked on? - would be worth the effort then there's no issues at all.

then do you have friends, family ect. that are in business - maybe an uncle that's a plumber or a friends of a friends mum that owns a shop. Start doing some work on the side that way to build up your porfolio.
 
Twitter is very powerful for self promotion. I get 3-4 client emails a week from twitter alone. May not sound like that much but in reality it adds up ;) Especially if one of those emails is from a high budget client with a great project.
 
All, as usual thanks for the feedback.

eddyp, yes I could do fake projects, and I know it would be worth it but being able to use the actual press ads, company branding etc would be much preferred. I do have some personal projects I can use, I just don’t feel they carry as much weight as the work I do for my full time employment.

Berry, I can understand that, however I’m not actually looking to leave the company I’m with any time soon. There’s a chance I might need to re-locate to the other side of the country in the next twelve months or so would like to be a bit ahead of the game in building a portfolio and website rather than just throwing something together at short notice - hence the question of is there anyway that is can come across as I’m just proud of the work i’ve done there, its all public facing material anyway so its already in the public domain and I just want to be able to display it - or will it always come across as - I’m looking for a new job?

How does everybody else manage, or are most peoples portfolio’s made up of freelance projects with the permission of the client? Surely Berry’s reactions is typical and as soon as you ask for permission to display work done in-house or through and agency, they are likely to just mark you down as looking for another job?
 
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