Customer requesting copy of their logo

First you need to have a policy and then stick to it and your customers should know that policy up front.
Every shop however handles this issue different but personally in my own shop my policy is that I own the embroidery files, PERIOD!
I would not provide an end user customer a copy of their file in embroidery language.
The key is making sure that your customers understand this up front, and now that step was kinda missed it does complicates the issue some.
However, since you did not charge the client , even without a policy stated then I would still be very polite when I deny that request and simply state that we provided you with a free set up but we retain rights to that file.
Good Luck

Maybe he want the embroidery file to quote with another embroidery company. Maybe you can give a copy with some extra stitches (like put more underlay and etc) so, if he quote with other company may your price still looks better for him.

Or charge your digitizing fee and give the logo.

It is my understanding that it depends on the wording in the original order. At least this is what they told me when I went through training. Please let me know if I am mis-informed.

If you charged your customer a "digitizing fee" the customer owns the design and you will need to give the design to the customer.

If you charged them a "set-up fee" the embroiderer owns the design and can charge for the design.

If you did not charge for either on the original order I would assume you charged a set-up fee.

If the customer pays for the digitizing, it's their design. I have had customers who left me for better prices but usually come back to me for the better quality. If you get into a ******* contest with a customer over who owns their logo, they won't ever come back because you now have a bad rapport with them. Don't burn any bridges, if they paid for it, it's theirs, you're not out anything, let them have it and you have left the door open for them to return. I've been doing this for 18 years and this has worked out the best for me.

new case in the courts right now... could have some interesting consequences in our industry.:

WalMart is suing the widow of a photographer who took family pictures from the 50's to the 90's. She says they belong to her, they obviously feel differently. It is in the courts now but: (from Msn.com)

Part of the issue stems from how the photographers were classified. If they were "work-for-hire," as the Walton family contends they are, the Walton family would have rights to the copyright. If they were independent contractors, the photographers would have the rights.

Citing prior celebrity photo lawsuits, the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) sides with Huff's widow. On its website, the PPA points out that photographers typically own the copyright to images they take, and says Wal-Mart's tactics are "bullying."

The case will go before a U.S. District Court judge in early July

last time my Mother visited she brought down a slew of old photos. we went to WalMart to have copies made (her choice of business not mine) and any picture taken by a professional photographer they would not allow us to make copies of. No matter the age of the photo or that the original photographer was already gone from this world for over 30 yrs!

So , even though they PAID for the images they apparently did not have the right to make copies of those images.

Isn't this similar to our digitizing in many ways? we as the digitizer (photographer)? but yet in our industry it is very common to take our work to multiple places to have different embroideries done.

I have a different point of view. I provide dst files free of charge when requested by a customer. If a customer wants to leave I don't want to make things more difficult for them. I want my customers to be happy and if leaving makes them happy then I'm okay with that. In 12 years of business I've had less then 5 customers request files so it hasn't been a problem. I understand that some customers may request a file copy because they had a former embroiderer go out of business or they want to switch to a local person (we're primarily internet) or use a friend who has entered the embroidery business.

i agree with obemb. if the customer paid for the file, i believe it belongs to them. kind of like if i hired a painter to paint my portrait. i would expect to be able to keep the portrait.

in your case, they did not pay for the file. you can either give them the file out of the kindness of your heart, or just explain to them that you didn't charge them the digitizing fee up front because it was a large order and if they would like to keep it that the digitizing fee is $xx.

Everybody does it differently. I know a lot of embroiderers don't want to let go of the designs, but i don't believe in holding them hostage to force your customer back.

ah, but Digidana.... the end user probably did not contact the digitizer.. so someone else hired the digitizer to paint someone else's logo..... three parties could be involved.. you walk into an embroidery shop, they sub out the digitizing.... pretty common. So does the middleman own the design since they directly paid the digitizer? but the actual end user paid the middleman? not so simple.