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qadeerahmad523
Community Member

my refunded to client

I worked for a client, unfortunately my first client. He said to me make a portrait in hurry like just in 2 hours. i make it, and send him. but when he got this he never reply me, i never get my payment, today upwork notify me, you send a refund to this client. why i refund him, i worked for him in hourly base. unfortunately manual hour. but i worked for him, he must be approved my work and paid for that, but he did do this, and never reply me :'( . is the work takes action this type of fruad peoples?

7 REPLIES 7
prestonhunter
Community Member

Qadeer:

If by "make a portrait", you mean you painted or drew something by hand, then it is clearly not possible for you to use the Upwork time-tracker to log your time.

 

If this is something you did on the computer, then you made a mistake by using manual time.

 

Unfortunately, manual time has no protection against a client deciding to ask for hours to be reversed, thus forcing a refund.


The good news is that because you were not paid, the portrait you created BELONGS TO YOU. You may include this artwork in your portfolio, or sell it, or do anything you want with it.

 

The client DOES NOT have a right to use it. So if you see him using it, you can do a take down request.


Preston H wrote:

Qadeer:


The good news is that because you were not paid, the portrait you created BELONGS TO YOU. You may include this artwork in your portfolio, or sell it, or do anything you want with it.

 


You cannot use someone's likeness for advertising or other promotional activities unless you have their permission, and I'd think you'd need a model release if you wanted to sell it.

 

Edited to add: I'm no expert on copyright law, but neither is Preston, so I'd get a second opinion if I were you.

Christine:

You are confusing photos with paintings.

The rules are different.

 

As far as I'm concerned, if you painted it, and the client who commissioned it didn't pay for it, then it's yours. 100%.

 

(But Christine is right when she points out that I am not an "expert on copyright law".)

 

Let me add:

Christine (and others): I do not want to seem dismissive of your concerns regarding copyright and intellectual property rights. I understand where you are coming from with this. Obviously I am a strong supporter of Upwork's rule that freelancers own work that clients don't pay them for. I know you're not against that rule, but you are concerned about some of the ways the rule is applied. This is a topic appropriate for a longer conversation. Christine's suggestion to "get a second opinion" is wise. Ultimately, Upwork itself can't really dictate ever detail of how individual freelancers will apply this rule.


Preston H wrote:

Christine:

You are confusing photos with paintings.

The rules are different.

 

As far as I'm concerned, if you painted it, and the client who commissioned it didn't pay for it, then it's yours. 100%.

 

Ultimately, Upwork itself can't really dictate ever detail of how individual freelancers will apply this rule.


Preston, I'm not the one who's confused. Even if it's a painting, if the subject is a recognisable, living person, I'm pretty sure that you still can't just use their image in whatever way you like. It is also not up to Upwork to "dictate every detail of how individual freelancer will apply this rule" - Upwork doesn't make the laws.

Well, given that the subject of the painting wasn't likely to be sitting next to the OP at the time, it's probably safe to assume it was made from a photo. Which was owned by the client. So irrespective of the rights of using a person's image (which varies under different jurisdictions), using a painting based on the photo would be breaching the copyright of the photo.


Preston H wrote:

 

As far as I'm concerned, if you painted it, and the client who commissioned it didn't pay for it, then it's yours. 100%.

 

(But Christine is right when she points out that I am not an "expert on copyright law".)

 

Let me add:

Christine (and others): I do not want to seem dismissive of your concerns regarding copyright and intellectual property rights.


You keep doing it though. You keep telling people that stuff is theirs and they are free to use it even when it is not a borderline case and when it is clearly and without a question illegal.

Please, just stop it.

 

Upwork terms of service don't override the law. You will get someone into serious trouble one of those days.

 

Furthermore, you don't even interpret Upwork's terms of service correctly anyway. Just because a client acquires no rights to something when the client does not pay, doesn't mean that the freelancer does. A large percentage of Jobs on Upwork involve work being done on or involving something that has the rights of others attached to it. Altering, Editing, programming, using etc that sort of material does not make it the property of the person who does something to it. Nowhere in the terms of service does it state that freelancers acquire rights to something when nothing is paid.

 


Preston H wrote:

Obviously I am a strong supporter of Upwork's rule that freelancers own work that clients don't pay them for.


Well, the client doesn't own it when it hasn't been paid for. But there are lots of cases where the freelancer cannot use it either, regardless of the fact that the client does not own it.

This discussion has been going on for years. It has been patiently explained to you over and over why you must not keep telling people they own something and can use something and stick something in their portfolio just because the client did not pay for it.

Yet you keep doing it.

 

Just because you don't give a **bleep** what is legal and what isn't, does not mean you should advise people to do what would be OK if Preston had his way and all those pesky laws didn't exist.

 

They do exist and your disdain for them does not alter that fact.

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Qadeer,

 

When the client fails to pay for hours logged by the freelancer, any hours that aren't covered by Upwork Hourly Protection may be reversed. Please, check out this help article for more information. Our team will reach out to you directly via email with more information about your concern.

~ Bojan
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