You paid for the logo, you have the invoice and the vector files. Legally, that still may not mean what you think it means. Under Slovak and most European law, economic copyright cannot be sold at all, only licensed, and the scope of that licence comes down to a few sentences in your contract. Here is what belongs in them, what happens when they are missing, and what to ask for when you leave your agency.
Key takeaways
- The Slovak Copyright Act (185/2015 Coll.) states in section 20 that economic rights are non transferable and cannot be waived. Your agency cannot sell them to you even if it wanted to. It can licence them.
- For commissioned work, section 91 applies: unless agreed otherwise, the author is deemed to have consented to use for the purpose arising from the contract. Any other purpose needs fresh consent.
- The same section says the author may also use the work and licence it to others, unless you agree otherwise. For a logo that is almost always a problem.
- The only carve out is for software, databases and cartographic works, where the employee work regime applies and the client counts as the employer. Logos are not on that list.
- A trade mark is a different right from copyright and it is transferable, so that one really can be yours.
- Below you get four sentences to paste into your contract and a list of seven things to collect when you change suppliers.
Who owns the logo, the agency or the client?
Copyright in a logo belongs to the person who drew it. Always. As the client you receive a licence, meaning permission to use it, and that permission is exactly as wide as you agreed. This is a different model from the American work for hire doctrine, where ownership passes to the commissioning party. In Slovakia and across much of the EU it does not work that way, so a contract clause transferring ownership is simply void.
In practice that means this. If your contract says nothing more than "logo delivery", section 91 presumes the author consented to use for the purpose arising from the contract. If that purpose was business cards and a website, you have a licence for business cards and a website. Product packaging, a franchise in another country, or selling the whole brand to a buyer may sit outside it.
There is a second part clients read twice. Unless you agree otherwise, the author may keep using the work and may licence it to someone else. In practice this ends at the designer's portfolio and nobody minds. Legally the door stays open until you close it with an exclusive licence.
What exactly has to be in the contract?
Four things: scope, exclusivity, term and territory. Miss one and you have created room for an argument. This is the wording we put in our own contracts, and you are welcome to copy it:
1. The author grants the client an exclusive licence to use the work in all ways permitted by copyright law. Exclusive is the load bearing word here. A non exclusive licence can arise informally, an exclusive one has to be in writing or it is invalid.
2. The licence is granted for the full term of the economic rights and without territorial limitation. Without this you may hold a five year, single country licence, which you discover on the day you open an office abroad.
3. The client may modify the work, adapt it, combine it with other works and include it in a collective work. This is the sentence most rebrands trip over. Without it you may not even redraw your own logo into a new version.
4. The client may grant sublicences to third parties and assign the licence. You need it the day you hand the brand manual to a printer, a merchandise supplier or a new agency.
Alongside that, agree that the author may show the work in a portfolio and enter it into awards. It is fair, studios live on it, and it costs you nothing. We have it in our contracts as standard and no client has ever objected, because they can see it covers showing the work, not using it again.
How is copyright different from a trade mark?
Copyright protects the specific visual solution and it exists automatically the moment the designer finishes the drawing. Nothing is registered and nothing is paid. A trade mark protects a sign for specific classes of goods and services, it exists only once registered, and it costs money. Unlike economic copyright, a trade mark can be assigned, so that one genuinely becomes yours.
This is why you want both. The licence gives you the right to use and adapt the mark. The registration gives you the right to stop a competitor using something confusingly similar. If you are unsure how the two fit together, the WIPO overview of copyright basics is a readable starting point, and the EUIPO explains what can be an EU trade mark before you file.
What should you collect when you leave an agency?
The list is short and fits in one email. Ask for the source vector files (AI or EPS, not only PNG), the logo in outlines in every approved variant, exact colours in CMYK, RGB and Pantone, font licences or at least the precise typeface names and versions, open source files for the key visuals, an editable brand manual, and a written confirmation of licence scope if your original contract lacks one.
That last item matters most and is forgotten most often. While the relationship is good, a licence confirmation takes one email. Once it sours, you get silence. The same goes for fonts: a commercial font licence is tied to a named user, so a typeface bought by the agency is not legally yours even though the file sits on your machine. Sort it out at handover, it is usually tens to hundreds of euros, not a crisis.
If you are working out what a proper handover should contain, look at what a visual identity includes and what a logo and branding cost. Several items on those lists are the ones that quietly go missing.
When is the widest possible licence not worth pushing for?
Honestly, you do not always need everything. For a one off visual for a single campaign, a purpose limited licence is fine, and insisting on an unlimited exclusive one simply costs more. The licence is part of the price of the work, not a free extra. For an illustration on one banner, the gap between a limited and an unlimited licence can easily double the fee.
The second admission: a well written contract will not rescue a bad relationship. We have seen projects with immaculate paperwork fall apart because the two sides wanted different things, and projects run off a single page that ran for five years without a single dispute. A contract is insurance for the bad day, not a substitute for behaving decently. Read it that way and it stops feeling like distrust.
Frequently asked questions
If I paid for the logo, is it not automatically mine?
No. Paying the price gets you what the contract says, and economic copyright cannot be transferred at all under section 20 of the Slovak Copyright Act. Without an agreed licence scope, section 91 gives you only the purpose arising from the contract, which is usually far narrower than clients assume.
Can the agency show my logo in its portfolio?
Yes, unless you said otherwise. Authors have the right to be credited and most studios reserve portfolio use in the contract. If you need secrecy before a product launch, agree a publication date rather than a blanket ban. Almost every supplier will accept that.
Does the same apply to photos and video from a production?
Yes, the principle is identical, there are just more moving parts. Video adds music, performers' rights and paid media usage. Agree the usage scope up front, including whether the film may run as advertising and for how long.
What if the original contract has no licensing clause at all?
You can fix it retroactively with an addendum. Send your supplier the four sentences above with an effective date backdated to delivery. Most agencies sign without discussion because nothing changes for them. If they refuse, at least you know where you stand.
If you are reviewing a supplier contract or you are not sure what rights you hold to your own visuals, write to us through contact. We will go through it with you at no charge and tell you straight whether you have a problem. And if you commission creative from us, the licensing clause arrives written the way it is described above.
