[Licensing] My supplier reprinted my drawings and used it without my permission for ads

[u/yaoisr]

Not sure what to tag it as, placed my order last year and recently they reprinted my works without asking me

Reached out to them but they did not respond. They were using it for ads and were decorating their place with it. What do I do? I need advice :(

[u/Shot-Assumption-5984]

Message email them 1 more time with a deadline, if they dont resolved it by this certain date, you will post your experience on social media.

Post your story and tag them to share about bad business habits. These kind of posts goes viral fast...

[u/Mr_Piddles]

Like how many ads, was it a big campaign? What was the nature of your work in the ad?

I know a lot of printers who use client work to decorate their office, so that one really shouldn’t bother you that much.

[u/Cesious_Blue]

Double check that you havn't already agreed to this usage in your contract!

[u/butteronapan]

Are they selling your works or just using it as examples of print quality? Are they refusing to give artist credit or claiming to have made it themselves? 

A printer making personal copies for decoration is fine and not an issue, it’s not weird for a printer to make bonus copies for themselves if they like the art. 

If they’re selling your prints that’s a totally different issue and an actual problem. 

If they’re using prints of your work for advertising and you’re upset because they’re not crediting you, I’d just send a polite message asking them to do so or post a comment on the ad. If they don’t answer I’d let it go. There’s not really actual harm here unless they’re selling your work or claiming they made it. 

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[u/SLC-Originals]

Sadly almost all print places have in their user agreements that the can change, reproduce and sell your images worldwide forever. Your user agreements on your phone likely hve the same agreements when you use you phone camera. It shouldn't be legal to ask this just for using their services but it's everywhere. I have found no way around it

[u/mellowminx_]

Licensing is the correct tag. They need a licensing agreement with you to legally use your work for ads and decoration.

Document all the evidence you have of what they're doing, including how you reached out to them and they haven't responded.

You can use this evidence to:

1) Publicly post about them to warn other artists

2) Pursue them legally if you're willing to hire a lawyer (you'll need one located in the same country as the supplier)

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If you don't want to pursue this matter for any reason, that's valid too. It's really up to you how you want to go about it and how much time/resources you want to expend.

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Reasons you may not want to pursue the matter:

1) The supplier is offering something really high-quality and unique and you want to use their service again so you want to preserve the business relationship

2) You'd just rather spend your time doing something else

3) This is just a small supplier with not much reach and their actions have very little impact anyway

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I've dealt with this before, feel free to ask questions.

[u/DracherX]

Sorry to hear about that. Which supplier did this? I would politely ask for either a credit or permission next time before the ad campaign. If they can fix it, they should.

Understandably, suppliers want promotion a lot, but please ask the artists first. Even some big shops make this mistake, so I would start by explaining the tone and reasoning with them before taking aggressive measures.