a client for an events company i started with my friend put me in a bind recently, triggering a near-heart failure in the middle of a crucial study session. the incident involved a missing final layout for a job we urgently needed to send out to the printer. she was dumping all the work on me and there was absolutely no way i could study for two exams, wing a meeting with another supplier, prepare for a production meeting AND layout a new design. so i went home fuming and close to tears, which meant i absolutely had to rant. good thing a friend of mine was online. he could barely get a word in as i poured out all my frustrations regarding the lost layout and the seeming unreasonableness of the demands of the client.

after telling me things will be okay, my friend told me he would do the layout for me, which involved rendering a new artwork for the design. he managed to do this while attending to his day job as a trainer. it was close to eleven pm and he was slaving away on this new design while i studied as hard as i could under the circumstances. of course it was only 3 pm on his side of the world. you see my friend lives all the way in wales.

by the time 1 am manila time arrived, he had a new layout ready for me to present to the event's producers. as i was toying with spins for the new layout, a thought entered my head: the layout was created in wales, was transmitted to the philippines via instant messenger and is intended to be used in the philippines. i wonder, which laws would apply, that of the philippines or that of wales?

in this day and age of easy transfers of creative works, artists and client rarely stop and think of such things as which laws will be applicable. and this becomes important in light of determining who owns the copyright to the work since welsh and philippine laws may provide for different terms of ownership.

hopefully, my client does not end up using the layout for anything else other than what it was intended for or that even if she does, my friend would not take offense and think of it as infringement of his rights. otherwise, i would be in a very tight bind.