Collaboration And Ownership

Collaboration and Ownership: The Importance of Legally Binding Documents

If you are working on a collaborative project with another creator or artist, you’d probably be best advised to talk some things over with them before really investing yourself into the work.

Even if you and your partner have been friends for years, nothing can end a friendship sooner than either A) a business deal gone sour, or B) a collaboration gone sour.

Think of the Beatles. Due to mere “creative differences”, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, perhaps the most important and close knit duo in the history of 20th Century popular music, wound up going through a bitter creative divorce. To say that the two left the Beatles with “hard feelings” would be putting it gently.

The final Beatles song appearing on the final album was written by Paul McCartney, and featured the line “you’re gonna carry that weight a long time”. This accusing lyric was aimed directly at John Lennon, letting him know that Paul blamed him, specifically, for the disbanding of the group. The Beatles parted ways on a harsh note, but that wasn’t the end of it. Lennon and McCartney both wrote and sang “attack” songs directed at one another, criticizing the other’s lifestyle and relationships, and even personal beliefs. In interviews, the two were constantly trading jabs at each other.

This should, hopefully, serve to let you know that even the most perfect, harmonious friendship can be bitterly shattered by something as simple as an artistic or creative disagreement. This isn’t the only case of a wonderful partnership turning sour for what seems like no reason to outsiders. Tsui Hark and John Woo were a pair of action film directors in Hong Kong. Together, they pioneered a style of directing that is still being copied in Hollywood films to this day. However, at one point, Hark asked John Woo to write a script for him. Hark wound up rejecting the script, but swiping ideas from it to make his own movie. The two have not worked together since, and at one point, Hark even tried to have John Woo blacklisted from the Hong Kong film industry.

There are hundreds of stories like these.

Discuss legal matters with your partner before you lay out one line of code, before you play a single note on your guitar, or before you write a single word on the laptop. Do not tell yourself “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there”, don’t tell yourself “Well it won’t happen to us!” because there’s really no telling what tiny little detail will seem irrelevant to you, but in your partner’s eyes, will ruin the entire piece.

Register a joint copyright, or register different elements of the work to either party. You don’t need to hire a lawyer if you can’t afford one, but you should do a little research on legal terms and have both parties sign something that reduces liability regarding any major disagreements.

Ideally, any kind of makeshift contract you and your partner can agree on would have to cover payment issues. How much would the partner who quits deserve for his contributions if you were to keep going on without him? A “plan B” should be in place if one of you decide to abandon the project, and a “plan C” if you both decide to pursue the project solo instead of together. This might involve something as simple as having one or both parties change the title, character names, and other minor details, or you might determine that one party should be given default ownership in the event of a falling out.

As the saying goes, hope for the best and plan for the worst.

The fact is that when you are relying on yourself to finish a novel or an independent film or something, you are only relying on yourself. If the project fails, you only have yourself to blame, and if you have the energy and ambition to see it through, the project will come to fruition. Working with a partner, you are dependent on their being as dedicated as you are, and if they would rather slack off, it can be disheartening. On the other hand, if the project fails, it’s also a little too easy to blame them entirely.

Think of a creative partnership like a marriage, because it really can be that personal. Remember that about half of all marriages end in divorce.