This got me thinking as recently it seemed like an organization was interested in using some of my work for commercial purposes which is not an usual request such as productions wanting quick media showcases for their commercial ads they are working on. You often simply work out a licensing agreement and it’s a great to be able to provide a service to other businesses while earning an income from it unexpectedly.
But recently there was a request from a person who literally just asked if I could give them my work to use. I tried to ask for clarification such as if they intended to use it for commercial work but they never directly answered it. Instead they simply suggested they wanted to have a local copy of it. While that sounds very strange, this actually happens frequently where people try to get other’s people work for free in hopes of bypassing any kind of compensation or credit as they use your work to help boost or profit their own creations.
This is one of those things where if you are in the creative business especially you need to treat your work as a valuable asset. This is not like hanging around with your buddies and people lending each other books and videos games as an example.