FREELANCE artists are ALWAYS at RISK!
In these days of the internet, emails & FTP servers, many artists can work on major productions from the comfort of home. The longest distances are no longer a factor in this age and a freelance production crew can involve individuals all over the world.
What about contracts?
What about the guarantee of being paid once you have completed your work?
Sometimes this part of the deal is not as simple. Even if you are working for 'apparently' large and reputable studios and you are working on very high-profile feature projects.
Be careful. The devil is ALWAYS in the details.
Full story here:
http://www.geocities.com/filmaxwarning/main.html
ALL comments are welcome!
:eek:
yeah, my point was; there's nothing whining about it on forums is going to do to get the money back. All he's doing is annoying the rest of us. Filmax isn't going to care a lick that he's spamming these forums, if they can afford to wait him out they certainly don't think this would hurt their business. And the thing is, they are correct. I learned a long time ago that when you contract work you need to protect yourself. If you don't it's sour grapes. And if he's not going to go through the legal route to resolve this, there's nothing that slandering this company across the community is going to do but upset a lot of people.
Also, bear in mind, we're only getting his side of it. It could possibly be that the work they did for Filmax did not in fact meet their contractural obligations. We only have one side of the story.
Assumptions..........!
All our work was approved and accepted by Filmax's art department to their full satisfaction.
Might be time to let go, Fairplay2005.
You've been screwed, it happens. Learn from it and move on.
Its all you can do.
I'm still owed about $18,000 from a school I taught at ( but not in Spain, in Canada) back in 2002-2003.
I'll never see a dime of that money, and I did my ranting/yelling/crying, stomping feet thing. You take the loss, and try to cover your ass next time.
Sure there's the principle of trying to recover the monies owed and serving justice on the contemptible ones. Reality check---- its a long, exhausting process to do so, even when everything goes in your favour, and you might not gain by it.
Injustice sux...........but it happens
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Thanks Ken,
I cant just 'move on' while I owe others their payments. I will not stop till I get every penny.
You let $18,000 go? Wow......I would never do that.
-Fairplay2005-
If you had a contract then you need to exercise your legal options. Other than that you really have no power and whining about it won't help your case I'm afraid. I feel bad for you, but there are just dishonest people in this world. Always have an iron-clad contract, that has firm collection dates in it. And always be prepared to collect in court. Don't think that you can't do anything just because you're in a different country. All the energy you're expending ranting about it would be better served doing something about it, or getting more work to pay your employees.
I do symphathize with you, but you need a different approach.
Nice sentiments--but do you realize that the court and legal costs would be borne by you until the settlement ( if any) is reached an awarded? That could easily be tens of thousands of dollars. Contesting a contract breach works only if you have the means to sue, and if the company has the assets to recover restitution from. In my own case, the school went out of business--meaning that the assets it had "vanished" along with it. there was no entity, per se, to sue--thus no point in suing. I'm told the labour board went to court on my behalf, WON a decision saying I was owed $18,000, and that the school had to pay.
I've won, and because there's no assets, I've won NOTHING.
This is pretty typical.
I got my justice.
Justice just doesn't always come with a dollar value attached.
You can get a lawyer to work the case pro-bono, but the length of time contract suits take might make finding one to take the case on will be hard--most lawyers will tell you to eat the loss.
Suing a company outside of your home country is even harder because though many lawyers will do some pro-bono work they will also weigh how complex time-comsuming the case will be. Its not just the laws of your land, its the laws of the land in the country where the work was done. Cross border suits of this nature are VERY DIFFICULT to prosecute because unless the dollar values are AT LEAST in the hundred of thousands , then there is no point. Anything less than $100K in total owed to people and you might as well forget about ever getting a dime.
Just think about this: the red-tape for your lawyer in country A, even trying to get to see the contract agreement the victim signed in country B could take months--because the two legal systems may have no form protocols or policies for dealing with such info exchange. Hell, the perp in this case can simply say they've LOST the contract--or not even bother to look for it. They can EASILY say the victim was never an employee, never did the work, was fired...etc, etc........on it goes. One-sided proof is meaningless in a cross-border case.
It sounds to me like Fairplay2005 hasn't retained a lawyer at all, because they are ranting/slagging the employer here in apublic on-line forum.
Fairplay2005 is far better off consulting the tax situation in their home country and seeing if they can write off the non-payment as a bad debt. That way they can at least do something like cumulate expenses and use them as a deduction, if allowed, on their income taxes. Its not much but it can take the edge off a bit.
Other than that, there is nothing they can do, IMO.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)