There are many people taking up Freelance Jobs as their full time profession. But not many of them are aware of the many legal issues connected with the freelance marketing. It is necessary to know those legal issues and be prepared to be ready with the solutions therefor – even seek expert advice where situation so demands. Also make enquiries about any future issue that you feel you may face in the future if there are any areas of concern with specific clients or projects.
Some key issues which you need to be aware of are:-
- How to maintain and enforce your copyright on all pieces of work created by you and what are the remedies available in case your copyright is infringed by any of your competing freelancer or any of your client.
- The above also implies that you too do not infringe anyone else’s copyright by using their materials, content or images as part of a campaign without prior agreement and preserve that piece of permission for your future reference and use whenever that becomes necessary.
- Take a personal indemnity insurance – this may or may not be required depending on the way your business is structured, but it is worth checking with a professional whether you need it at any given period of time.
- Terms and conditions – you should create a set of these conditions and email them to your prospective clients at an appropriate moment. These should, inter alia, include but may not be limited to the following mentioned:
- Terms and conditions – you should create a set of these conditions and email them to your prospective clients at an appropriate moment. These should, inter alia, include but may not be limited to the following mentioned:
* what will be your charges - an hourly rate, a day rate and a reduced rate for a certain volume of hours per month on a sliding scale if you wish.
* your credit terms - 30 days is standard but as a freelancer you may try 14 and see if your clients will go with that. Some do and some don’t!
* your mileage charges – these must be within the industry norm – within the maximum and minimum allowed parameters taking into account the tax angle of such charges.
* stipulate that all other expenses that you propose to charge (train fares, taxis etc) are charged at cost ‘with prior agreement from the client’.
* stipulate that all other expenses that you propose to charge (train fares, taxis etc) are charged at cost ‘with prior agreement from the client’.
* spell out what you will charge, if anything, for cancellation of a specific day’s booked activity and to what timescale – e.g. will it be uniform or in a graded scale of say, 50% if cancelled within x days etc and so on.
- Non-disclosure agreements – often a client will ask you to sign one of these if they are going to give you access to confidential information. These are generally fairly standard but do read them carefully and make sure you can abide by them. Also once having accepted to abide by any Non-circumvention and non-disclosure clause, you must adhere to its terms in both letter and spirit and do not violate them in any case
- Understand the implications if you buy in services and sell them on with a mark-up. If you do this, you are technically liable for those services as ‘the supplier’ whereas if you simply put suppliers in touch with clients, then you are not. If the supplier fails to carry out the activity as agreed and there is a subsequent loss incurred by your client, you would be liable rather than your supplier.
