Author Topic: Lawsuits and code of ethics in visualization pratice.  (Read 3772 times)

2014-11-16, 08:36:17

Alex Abarca

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What are you experiences in terms of legalities and responsibilities around taking on a project. I've heard of very little about lawsuits in the biz. What's your take on this?

2014-11-16, 12:15:23
Reply #1

Captain Obvious

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The only lawsuits I've ever heard about is when clients have refused to pay. Though with product and arch viz it's often very important to not leak any information or imagery. If you're doing product viz of, I dunno, the new Playstation or whatever and the images end up on the internet, I can imagine that Sony would consider legal action...

2014-11-17, 06:19:11
Reply #2

Alex Abarca

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In all of the projects I've done so far I signed a disclosure agreement. Which basically means I cannot share any type of information to competing architectural firms. This is well understood. However, the question that arises is when a client refuses you to pay for the reason that they didn't like the imagery produced. And after spending a considerable amount of time, it can be a great loss. And this can potentially happen for many reasons.

2014-11-18, 01:39:36
Reply #3

Captain Obvious

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Sure, that's why you'll want a cleraly worded contract for bigger jobs.

2014-11-18, 01:57:58
Reply #4

Juraj

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In all of the projects I've done so far I signed a disclosure agreement. Which basically means I cannot share any type of information to competing architectural firms. This is well understood. However, the question that arises is when a client refuses you to pay for the reason that they didn't like the imagery produced. And after spending a considerable amount of time, it can be a great loss. And this can potentially happen for many reasons.

No contract completely avoids such outcome. And the struggle to go through law path is often not worth it. The contract is still mighty important (don't even ask me how long is mine...).

But what is even more important, is deposit ;- ) And for longer projects, intermittent payments. This way, you can never make absolute loss, but it also keeps good cash-flow for you and makes peace with your mind.
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2014-11-18, 04:33:08
Reply #5

Alex Abarca

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I've never been in a legal dispute, luckily all my projects have been well received and done in the allowable time. But I cant deny that a potential lawsuit crosses my nervous mind. I call an insurance broker, one that generally provides insurance type of protection to architects and engineers. When i told the broker "I am an artist" he basically laughed for a second. He said generally he has not heard of such coverage from an artist. Just an interesting fact I wanted to share with you guys.

 I also started looking at professional associations for archviz artists...American Association of Architectural Illustrators for those of who are in the U.S. Could be a good idea to join to get some professional backing.

Come to think about it, our work is not something to be taking lightly firms invest alot time and design in their works. And since our visuals are on the forefront they are the instruments to exponentially employ many people in a project. :D