I have had a long term relationship with an artstamp manufacturing company in England. I have had an agreement that they have my permission to sell my artwork for art stamp images for a royality on each image sold. For many years they paid me, not always on time but in an acceptable manner. They discontinued my payments as of spring of 2010. They have continued to tell me that I am not selling anything dispite the fact that they have hundreds of my images on their website, are using my artwork for seasonal promotions and I have other examples to prove they are still selling them in their factory shop. I also have information that they have sold these images at a huge discount at a warehouse sale, dumping inferior quality onto the market, also without paying me. When I confronted them in May of 2011, I insisted they take all my images off of their website and that we take steps to legally end this business relationship. The response was "We will think about it but we don't want to because we are the voice of your designs in the UK". My work is very well received in England, the US and many other countries. I am a well established designer with full ownership of all of my designs. The owner of this company is difficult to work with at best and is rather adept at making up his own rules. I have reached the conclusion that it it best that I be represented by someone with legal authority.My question is what is the best way to handle this situation since they are in the UK and I am in the US? Do I need to work with a copyright attorney in the UK or the US or both? My wish would be request 2 1/2 years of records of sales and payments due to me, that they remove all products from their store, factory and website by destroying them rather than dumping them on the market and a full industry wide apology for damage done to my reputation by selling overstock at a discount.I am very anxious for some direction. Thank you in advance.
hello,
if they do business in the US then you could use a US attorney (but you could definitely use a UK attorney)....also check your agreement to see where the "choice of law" provision is. you should definitely consult with a business litigation attorney with some copyright experience...this sounds like you have a claim for breach of contract and related damages, because they have failed to compensate you under the agreement (and if there is a reporting requirement in the agreement then they likely violated that too). You should consult with an attorney asap, you can find one at lawyers.com to legalmatch.com