Suw Charman's published her excellent article from Design In-Flight magazine on ad agencies and marketing companies that threaten to sue their designers for putting samples of their own work in their portfolios:
When designer Jason Santa Maria put his portfolio online he wasn't expecting to get a Cease and Desist letter from a former employer citing clauses from his contract and demanding that he remove any references to them, including all images, from his site. Jason had fallen foul of his old Work for Hire contract which transferred ownership of all rights in his designs to the company he worked for. It meant that the only legal way he could use his designs in his portfolio was to obtain express permission from the rights owner, his former employer, or challenge the restriction in court.
"I wasn't entirely aware of the ramifications when I signed," Jason admits. "I was young and inexperienced. Most design shops accept that people will use the work they do in their public portfolios, but because you are now able to have a body of work on your website which can be accessible by anyone at anytime, I think you will see an increase in situations like this. Information is so readily available that you can't assume people aren't looking and, more importantly, aren't taking notice.
