Client using your work without paying? Your UK rights as a freelancer

You do, unless you assigned it in writing. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s.11(1), the author is the first owner of copyright. The employee exception in s.11(2) applies to employees, not to freelancers. GOV.UK’s ownership guidance says a person working under a contract for services usually retains copyright unless there is a contractual agreement to the contrary.

Section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is the starting point:

• s.11(1). The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it, subject to the rest of the section.
• s.11(2). Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of employment, the employer is the first owner, unless agreed otherwise.

A freelancer is not working under a contract of employment. You are working under a contract for services. GOV.UK’s Ownership of copyright works says courts treat that distinction as the line between s.11(2) and s.11(1), and that a person working under a contract for services will usually retain copyright in the works they produce unless there is a contractual agreement to the contrary.

The same GOV.UK page is blunt about commissioned work: when you ask someone to create a copyright work, the first legal owner is the person who created it, not the commissioner, unless you otherwise agree it in writing.

Copyright here is UK-wide. The money-claim procedure later on this page is England and Wales.

No. Paying the invoice does not transfer copyright. Section 90(3) of the 1988 Act says an assignment of copyright is not effective unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor. A paid invoice, a verbal “it’s yours”, or sending the files does not move legal title. You remain the owner until that signed writing exists.

Section 90(3) is short and strict. An IP assignmentIP assignmentAn IP assignment is a transfer of ownership in the work, so the client owns it instead of the person who made it.More in the glossary is a transfer of ownership. It has to be in writing, signed by you (or someone signing on your behalf). The client’s signature on a purchase order does not assign your copyright. Clearing the invoice does not assign it either.

What payment can do is trigger a clause you already signed: “on payment in full, the Freelancer assigns…”. That clause is the written assignment, and payment is the event that makes it bite. Without that clause, payment is only payment.

A licence is different. A licence is permission to use the work, not a transfer of ownership. Licences are not caught by s.90(3) in the same way. They can be implied, which is the next problem.

They may have a limited implied licence to use the work for the purpose it was commissioned, even if copyright still sits with you. GOV.UK says that when copyright is not dealt with in the contract, courts may find an implied licence. That is not ownership. It is often a limited non-exclusive licence. Silence on the paper is the risk.

GOV.UK on commissioned works puts it this way: if copyright is not dealt with in the contract, courts may be willing to find an implied licence allowing the commissioner to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. That does not transfer ownership. The commissioner may only get a limited non-exclusive licence.

That is the gap a silent brief creates. You delivered a logo for their website. They put it on the website. A court can read in permission for that use even while you still own the copyright. What the implied licence does not automatically give them is the right to sell the mark, to exclude you, or to treat the files as theirs.

The owner of copyright has the exclusive right to copy the work, issue copies to the public, communicate it to the public and adapt it (CDPA 1988 s.16). Doing those acts without a licence is infringement. The implied-licence argument is how a client says they had a licence. Your job is to shrink that argument: write the licence, name the uses, and tie it to payment.

Pre-existing materialspre-existing materialsPre-existing materials are tools, libraries or work the supplier already owned, which are licensed for the job rather than handed over.More in the glossary stay yours either way. Libraries, components, presets and tools you brought to the job are licensed for this delivery, not handed over with the new work.

They are two different claims. The invoice is a debt: they agreed to pay for the work. Copyright is a property right: without a licence they do not have permission to copy, publish or communicate the work to the public. You can chase the money, ask them to stop using the files, or both. One does not replace the other.

Keep the two letters in two piles, even if you send them on the same day.

Settling the invoice does not, by itself, settle the copyright. If they pay and you still have not assigned anything in writing, you still own it. If they never pay and they keep the work live, you still have both claims.

Do not mix a without-prejudice settlement offer into the open demand. The chase for the fee is an open letter.

Gather the brief, contract, files, invoice and every email. Write once: the amount, the due date, that copyright has not been assigned, and that they must stop public use until they pay or you agree a licence. For a business client, add statutory interest under the 1998 Act. If they ignore you, start a money claim for the debt.

A working sequence:

1. Evidence. The brief, proposal or freelancer agreement. The files you delivered and where they are now being used. The invoice, the due date, and the chase thread.
2. Written demand for the fee. Invoice number, amount, original due date, account details, a short new deadline. For a business client, statutory interest at 8% above Bank of England base rate plus the fixed recovery sum under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. GOV.UK on late commercial payments states that rate. We do not print a base-rate figure here because it changes. This right does not apply to a consumer client.
3. Stop-use request. In the same letter or a second one: copyright has not been assigned under CDPA 1988 s.90(3); they have no licence to copy, publish or communicate the work to the public except any limited use you are willing to allow until payment; they must confirm they have taken it down from named places by a short deadline.
4. Letter before action, then a money claim. Fourteen days for a company, 30 days if the debtor is an individual. Then a specified money claim through Money Claim Online or the HMCTS online service. Small claims in England and Wales go up to £10,000. Do not guess the court fee. The full sequence is in What do I do when a client won't pay my freelance invoice.

The stop-use request is the copyright side. The money claim is the debt. You can run both. This page does not invent a copyright-specific court fee or a take-down procedure beyond that written request.

If the job was never on paper, you can still chase. A contract can be formed by emails, a brief and doing the work. What you cannot point to is an assignment on payment that nobody signed.

Write that copyright, or any licence to use the work, passes only on full payment. Until then they have no right to publish. That is the line you point to when the logo is live and the invoice is still open. Agree it on one shared draft before you start, not in a later email thread.

Three sentences do the work:

• Assignment or licence, on payment only. Ownership, or the right to use the work, moves when the invoice is cleared, not when you email the files. See intellectual property assignment.
• Pre-existing materials stay yours. Licensed for this job, not assigned. See pre-existing materials.
• A pause right if an invoice is overdue, so you are not still supplying files while the last invoice sits.

Example

Copyright and any licence to use the Deliverables pass to the Client only on payment in full. Until then the Client has no right to copy, publish, communicate or adapt the Deliverables except as the Freelancer agrees in writing. Pre-existing materials stay with the Freelancer and are licensed only as part of the Deliverables. If an invoice is unpaid 7 days after it is due, the Freelancer may pause the work and may revoke any temporary permission to use unpaid work.

In Plain English: they do not own it, and they may not use it, until they have paid. Your old libraries stay yours. If they are a week late, work stops and any stop-gap permission comes back.

A graphic design contract is the usual home for that split between finals, working files and libraries. A freelancer agreement carries the same ownership line for other kinds of job.

That clause is what you later quote. An implied licence is much harder to argue once the paper says there is no licence until payment.

On Contracts.io both sides draft, negotiate and e-signe-signatureAn e-signature is any electronic way of showing agreement to a document, such as a typed name, a drawn signature or a click.More in the glossary one shared contract, so the ownership line is the version you both signed. Start from a graphic design contract or a freelancer agreement. The client opens one link. Nobody emails v4_final.docx back and forth. Rights that pass only on payment are then the signed words, not a hope.

You describe the job in a sentence. Lex drafts the agreement. You share one link. The client can Accept, Counter or Decline on that same version, then both of you e-sign it. The other side never pays and does not need an account.

That does not chase an invoice for you. It does mean the IP assignment, the licence and the pause right are the words you both signed, not a line lost in email.