Without running my own business/company, what are my options for selling an exclusive license/transferring copyright to a client based in the UK (I live in Poland)? I considered having the client draft a contract agreement for us (she would need to hire a solicitor).
0
Comments
You're looking for an Intellectual Property attorney. If you're just doing assignment of rights and not a license for use then you probably don't need to further make sure they have experience with software licensing - but it wouldn't hurt.
There's a big difference between assigning rights and selling an exclusive license. With assignment of rights you are selling all your options and they can do anything they want with the fonts. With an exclusive license you can restrict all sorts of things (like require that they can't expand the family without your permission or prevent them from selling the fonts to someone else) even if you give very permissive use rights.
If you do go the license route make sure your attorney reviews font licenses before drafting it. Fonts are very weird among software and an attorney who knows other kinds of software licensing is likely to do some basic things that are normal elsewhere but not in fonts. If you need a list of a few good licenses send to an attorney just let me know. I teach a workshop on exactly this topic.
With regard to assignment of rights, if you only want the client to have the right to use the font(s) in a particular way, that doesn't sound like transfer of copyright, but only granting of a use license. Of course, a use license that is both exclusive and perpetual would be significantly similar to copyright transfer in terms of preventing you from licensing the work to other customers, but it might not affect derivative works, i.e. such a license could prohibit the client from creating derivative works while enabling you to do so (presuming you could do so in a way that wouldn't undermine the exclusivity of the license on the original work). Also, such an agreement might prohibit the client from distributing the font or financially exploiting it beyond their own use.
The first thing I would do is clarify with the client exactly what their needs are, and then draft some terms for discussion that would cover those needs. I find a lot of clients have not really thought through what they need until you start asking them questions. Do they need perpetual exclusivity? Or would they be happy with a (renewable?) period of exclusivity? With an option to buy out remaining rights during or at the end of that period? Or are they really certain that what they want is to own the fonts outright and for you to explicitly transfer all rights?
Obviously the answers to these questions will determine not only the terms of the agreement but also the price.
I see now what you're saying about different kinds of rights. I'm not sure how much that concept is transferable with fonts but I get the idea.