This article explains how to protect your project confidentiality and manage copyright with your freelancers on Malt.
- Freelancers commit to confidentiality via Malt terms of use and an NDA if needed.
- Copyright can be assigned via quote legal mentions or a separate contract.
- A rights assignment must specify scope, destination, territory, and duration.
How can I guarantee the confidentiality of a project?
You can protect the confidentiality of a project by signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) through the platform. Freelancers already commit to respecting the confidentiality of all their exchanges on the platform when they agree to Malt’s T&Cs.
9.5 The Freelancer undertakes to keep strictly confidential all exchanges with Customers as well as any information communicated to them or of which they become aware when contact is made via the Marketplace (which may or may not give rise to an Assignment. Users notably undertake not to share with any third party, either privately or on social media, any exchange, information or extract from a conversation on the Website messaging service.
How is copyright handled?
You can ask to include clauses related to exclusive usage or the transfer of copyright and intellectual property rights in the legal mentions at the bottom of their quotes. You can also establish a separate contract.
Copyright transfer agreements are interpreted very strictly: only the rights explicitly stated as transferred belong to you; all other rights remain the property of the freelancer.
These matters are generally discussed during negotiations with the freelancer.
In most cases, freelancers agree to transfer the rights to their work. The compensation related to this transfer should be fair and proportional to the benefits generated by the use of the work.
Depending on the size of your company and the scope of the project, it is often recommended to include the transfer fees within the freelancer’s overall daily rate rather than charging them separately.
Transfer of copyright and intellectual property rights
A copyright transfer agreement must clearly define the scope of the rights being transferred, specifying the following:
• Scope: List the authorized uses of the work, such as display rights for a photo or reproduction rights for printing.
• Purpose: Describe how the work will be used (e.g., 500 copies of an A3 poster).
• Territory: Specify the countries where the copyright transfer applies (e.g., worldwide or limited to certain countries).
• Duration: You can adjust the duration of the rights transfer, but it cannot exceed the legal term of protection of the rights over the work.
Few examples
Example 1: Transfer of all reproduction and display rights for this work for use exclusively on the client’s XXX website, worldwide, for the entire duration of copyright.
Example 2: Transfer of reproduction rights within the European Union for up to 100,000 copies or one year, whichever comes first.Example