I’m getting a lot of requests for commissions these days so let me try to outline everything here. I’m pretty chill to actually work with, but this document will be kinda serious — it’s here to try to get ahead of various ways one party or the other can get burned in commission work, or have unspoken assumptions that disagree, and so on. It helps us both if some things are clear right from the start. So here goes.
What I Do
A commission is when I make something to a client’s specifications. You have the idea and money, I have the skills and ability to execute, and so we agree to make an exchange: your money for my time.
The stuff in my store is representative of what I can do. You may have also encountered my roleplay/combat systems on certain sims: interconnected systems to enable combat, inventory, currency, crafting, and so on, that make your sim a game within a game. But that’s not all I do, so let’s be specific:
Mostly I’m a scripter. I taught myself this skill starting years ago with jamming together chunks of code I found on the wiki all the way to today, where I’ve made huge complex interconnected systems with webserver databases and all.
Recently I’ve gotten into meshing as well. I’ve learned Blender and Substance Painter and I can make some pretty convincing objects these days. Usually I only use this skill in support of a project that’s mostly scripting, but that might change as I develop these skills more.
I can also write. I’m not looking to take commissions that are only writing, but it does mean I’m happy to prepare user-friendly documentation for the project.
I am not, however, an illustrator, graphic artist, or animator. I dabble in Photoshop and I’ve done short animations in support of my projects, but I don’t have a tablet, mocap setup, or much expertise in making artistic things by hand. You will be better off sourcing these things elsewhere. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so if there’s something in the spec I feel I can’t do justice to, I’ll say so.
Clients are always asking me if it’s possible to make this or that, and while SL makes some things difficult or impossible, my answer usually is, “Anything is possible given enough time and effort.” Tell me what you want and I can tell you how hard it’ll be and whether I think the result will be worth the effort.
What It Costs
What I make for you will not be priced like an item in my shop that I expect to sell in volume. You will be paying for hours of skilled labor spent on a bespoke project. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it: that’s expensive!
If you want to discuss a project with me, have the idea at least outlined in your head. Give me a rough idea of the spec and I can give you a rough idea of how long it’ll take me, and I can roughly estimate the cost. It might be Second Life, but it’s real hours of my labor, and I don’t work for peanuts. (Especially on huge projects. If you paid US$300 for that roleplay sim, then you should expect to pay at least a similar amount for the massive, complex scripted system that makes your sim’s concept happen.)
Smaller projects, of course, will have smaller price tags, and if it’s part of a business, we can discuss more partnership-like arrangements. The upshot of all this is: please only come to me with serious offers.
If I like your idea, the price seems right to both of us, and we tentatively agree to move forward, then I’ll need one very important thing from you before I get started: the spec. This is where you write down exactly what you want: how you want it to look, how you want it to behave, everything you want it to do, in as much detail as you can manage. If I don’t know what you want, then I can’t make it happen. But a good spec becomes part of our contract and defines our expectations for the final result. Furthermore, it’ll be my bible throughout the project. An inworld notecard or a Google doc work best.
Sometimes a project has additional costs for supporting assets. For example, I’ve made roleplay systems that call for a dozen different scripted food items. In this case, meshing and texturing original food objects isn’t really the focus of the project, the roleplay system is — so, it’ll save me time and you money if we can agree on full perm objects from the marketplace to use instead of bespoke objects I make myself. As the client, you’ll cover these costs — they don’t come out of the pay for my labor. I will let you know when I think it’s better to take this approach and get your approval for the specific things purchased. You can also, of course, simply source the assets yourself.
What You Get
So what do you get in return? When I’m done, you’ll get your very own copy of the item, system, or whatever it is, and I will make sure you’re happy with it, support it, etc. — that means I’ll fix any problems we find in it, or anything that you reasonably believe doesn’t adhere to the original spec, until we agree it’s complete. I want you to be happy with the result! However, any new additional features that weren’t in the original spec will mean paying for more of my time. This is another reason it’s really important that you give me a clear and detailed spec!
I’ll happily demonstrate progress on the project while I’m working on it, and give a full demo when I think it’s complete. I expect that you will satisfy yourself that I’ve done good work and met the spec before you complete payment. Similarly, I’ll want to be paid in full before I deliver the finished product.
For big projects that might take days or weeks to complete, I will appreciate some payment in advance, or at least after showing some early progress.
Copyright
Clients who commission a work sometimes aren’t aware how copyright works under this arrangement, so I want to spell it out.
Copyright law in the US (where I live) and the EU is very clear: an author automatically has copyright on their work unless they clearly and specifically waive or transfer that right, or under a work-for-hire arrangement (which will not often apply in Second Life and must be a prior written agreement). The same goes for commissioned work: copyright is retained by the creator. Copyright does not transfer to the client unless both parties clearly agree that it does. Copyright law does not protect ideas, concepts, and other intangibles, but it does protect the specific expression of an idea.
For example, if a client tells a creator, “I want a cookie that eats itself,” then that is an idea, and not protected by copyright. When the creator meshes and scripts a cookie that eats itself, they have then created a specific expression of that idea, and they hold the copyright on that specific expression. They have fulfilled the commission when they grant the client a copy of the cookie they made. The copyright remains with the creator, and they are within their rights to sell copies of it, create derivative works from it, and so on.
That goes for us too! Unless we very clearly and specifically agree otherwise, I retain all rights (and most importantly, copyright) on whatever I make. That means I can adapt it into a product for my shop, use bits of it in other projects or commissions, or whatever I like. I won’t necessarily will, but I can! That’s what a commission is, same as in the real world: you pay for my time and a final result that matches your spec, but you’re not buying the copyright on what I made. The client cannot dictate if, when, or where I use any work that I’ve created myself, even if I created it to their specifications.
If you do want to purchase exclusive rights to the product, that’s a whole other beast (and I’ll generally be reluctant). If I’m creating or contributing to a product that you want to sell yourself, then I’m happy to negotiate on that basis, but you must be up front about it.
Second Life Permissions
Given the above, here are the Second Life permissions I’ll set on things I make on commission, absent a different agreement: the objects will be modify/copy, and the scripts that make it work will just be copy. I will usually not give you anything that is copy/transfer and almost certainly not full perm, as according to Linden Lab policy, this conveys the implicit right to redistribute the product or even an implicit transfer of copyright — something which, again, I’ll be very reluctant to do, especially without prior agreement.
If I’m contributing to a product that you wish to sell yourself, then of course my part of it will be copy/transfer. I’ll expect you to then reduce the permissions in your final product so that your customers aren’t purchasing copy/transfer permissions on my work.
Again, you are paying for my labor in creating the product and a copy of the final result in working order that matches your original spec. You are not automatically buying the right to redistribute or resell what I’ve created, nor do you become the copyright holder, nor do I guarantee that I will never create or contribute to a competing product, unless we have very clearly agreed otherwise beforehand. Sorry to keep hammering on this point, but being ambiguous here can lead to misunderstandings between myself and the client, so I want to be very clear about it.
Caveats
It’s important to understand that I’m just one single normal human being. I can make mistakes, things can take longer than I expected, I can get interrupted by real life, I can get sick, etc. I’ve never had a project get significantly derailed, but it’s always possible something could come up. If that happens, I’ll be up front about it and what a revised timeline might look like.
Sometimes things won’t work out. It hasn’t happened yet, but that day could always come. In this case, either of us can terminate the contract before the project is completed. If you end the project early, then understand that I may not be able to (and don’t feel obligated to) return any partial payments you’ve made, unless perhaps it was an early advance and I’ve barely started. This is because if I’m halfway through a huge project, then a lot of my time has already been spent, and often so has the money. If, on the other hand, I have to terminate the project, then I’ll do what I can to make you whole, with options including refunding payments and partial delivery. Like I said, it’s never come up, and I hope it stays that way.
Keep in mind always that we’re equals entering into a mutually beneficial arrangement. I do not become your employee. Part of our agreement will be that you treat me accordingly, and being abusive or making rude and unreasonable demands I will consider to be you terminating the contract.
I won’t take every project that comes my way. For one thing, I don’t have the time. I’ll be much more excited to work on things I find interesting myself (games, RP systems, cool stuff). But I also need time for my own projects and living my life. So if I take a project, it’ll be because the idea interests me. I’ll be engaged, I’ll ask questions, I’ll let you know what I’m doing, because it’s great when a client and I are both excited about what’s happening.
Conclusion
Wow that ended up really long. I promise I’m fun actually! And working on a good idea is fun and exciting. The point of all this is just to be up front about the not-so-fun considerations so we can get to all that cool creating of things. If you’re not sure what I meant by something in this document, please ask!
References
It’s all true!
Plagiarism Today: Copyright and Commissioned Art
BitLaw: Copyright Ownership
Nolo: Software and Application Development Agreements: Protect Your Copyright
Quora: “Who owns the copyright on artwork in commission work?”
Linden Lab: Second Life Terms and Conditions