Pitch to enough clients of a certain size and eventually you’re going to be asked to sign a standardized contract or NDA. Usually it comes from a large client with a team of lawyers who burry you in page after page of terms which are so one-sided it’s becomes laughable. And like the author of the post linked to below points out, it becomes an internal game of pros and cons—how bad do I need this paycheck? How good will this project or client be to my career? Will I see the finished piece and think, “I could have done better”?
My thought on the NDA is a true professional knows to always be discrete. Typically the NDA is used as a tool to give the holder leverage—not a good way to build trust in a business relationship.
I knew that this was just a ploy to try to get me to reconsider my position and blindly sign the papers. So I had to decide: was it worth the paycheck even if the terms were potentially harmful to me? The MSA contained terms that would be potentially damaging in the long term, but also were impossible and financially unreasonable in the short term
So what would you do, or have you done, in this situation? Would you sign under duress or walka away?
Via Creative Freelancer Blog | When you refuse to sign the client’s contract.
