Is what I'm doing dishonest?

For me personally its one of those tomato / tomatoe things, I dont think what your doing is dishonest, like you say your not claiming their work as your own and should you get hired your going to be sending work towards the fiverr gig anyway.

win for your client, win for the fiverr designer and win for you.

__________________________________________________ _________


Yes, it is dishonest. Because somebody who is buying your services thinks that you are providing your own services. FTC could cause problems if they catch you.

The Disclaimer page (or Terms of service page) of your website must mention that you are a web contractor OR that you hire web designers OR you outsource tasks to the third parties/web designers etc.etc. It is not necessary to mention that from where you hire people! Don't tell you hire at Fiverr.
Many companies hire/outsource services and they don't tell their clients.

If you send to your prospective clients some sort of a .pdf or a .doc file as your portfolio file, mention that at the last page of portfolio under the heading "credits" or "Disclaimer". Mention the lines as given above.

It will not do any harm, since people who need your services will simply go ahead and buy.

You don't have permission to use those images, so not only is it dishonest, it is illegal.

Something I've discovered in my own life is that 99.9% of the time, if a person has to ask if something is illegal, dishonest, immoral, wrong, etc. they already know it is and therefore shouldn't be doing it.

I think that would probably be the case here.

Mark

"Hello craigslist, I am a graphic design broker and I have a dozen professionals that can provide you with stunning graphic designs. Here are samples of their work."

Now you told the truth! when a client purchases your "broker service" you tell the Fiver designer that you have a client that needs this work completed. Use the same fiver designer a few times and then renegotiate the rates so you receive a bulk discounted rate. Thus you make more money in the long run.

You are providing your clients with professional designers and you are giving graphic designers more work, work they would not have without you. WIN WIN for all parties. - Pete

P.S. To answer your question... YES, the wording of your thread sounds dishonest. But congratulations, you are now a graphic designs broker!

.
Absolutely not - you're utilizing a resource. If I was reselling web hosting
would that be illegal, unethical or immoral? Of course not. You not only
must confer with potential customers, you're giving work to logo designers
who probably wouldn't get it without your efforts.

Nothing wrong with using Fiverr to get logo design work done. However, using their work as examples is dishonest. People are investing in YOU, not the Fiverr designer. Therefore, you need so show work that was done by you or under your guidance.

Even though you never claimed the work was yours, people will ASSUME it's your work. Since the Fiverr logos are so cheap, why not commission a few yourself as examples?

Also, I hope that you have a strong graphic design background too. It's very likely that you may have to do some tweaks, changes, revisions yourself. What if your client needs a small revision done in a few hours? Would you be able to do it? Only outsource stuff you know you can do yourself, your clients are depending on you.

The quality of the work that you get from fiver is unfortunately bottom low.

The easiest way to kill your business might be by lowering the quality of what you sell at such level that your reputation will suffer because of it

That´s my opinion and of those whom I asked about fiver

I wouldn't touch fiverr logo designers with a 10 foot pole.

Portfolio samples full of stolen images from actual graphic designers, unsustainable prices, poor quality logos, often stolen from Google and if you are lucky slightly modified...

You're helping scammers out and screwing up legit business owners to make a profit. The problem is people on fiverr can get away with it, everyone knows at least subconsciously that if I pay $5 and get crap, I get what I paid for.

If you resell that crap logo $50 to a local business owner, prepare for the pitchforks,

Hey Dave!

First of all, congrats on having that realization going on in your head. You are going on the right path.

Here's something you can do about it:

Go through designs/ graphics whatever you want sell on Craigslist on any PLR website. The 'content' has to have private label rights or master resell rights - you choose.

Then, go back to your favorite Fiverr design seller and ask him whether he can make similar stuff.

If he gives you a nod, BOOM!

You can show the exact design/ template/ graphic/ whatever to your Craigslist people.

However, you still need to add a disclaimer that you are outsourcing services. I have stated how in my comment above.

Start with this first.

At no time did you say "I Didn't Create These" leaving the reader to assume you did in fact create them. So .... walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... probably is a duck

If you have to question it, and then question us too.... don't do it.

Like someone else stated, calling yourself a "broker" or even perhaps "agency" will greatly help you. It's all in the wording and most clients will understand if you have outsourcers as people that work with you. Although I am not sure Fiverr would be the best places to go, unless you do have someone who is really talented there. And even then, I wouldn't just pay them $5 per logo if they are talented.

All the best.

Thanks everyone

I dont understand what the issue is. The OP states that the images are works of other designers. Just as a fiverr seller sells his logo to a buyer and then still uses the logo as part of his portfolio, the images can be used as a portfolio of his previous "brokering" deals

There's a mild loophole here which it seems most people in the thread are missing.
If he purchased the images he is using from the sellers on Fiverr, he owns them, legally, by Fiverr's TOS. In reality, he also owns all materials that were bought by the third parties he is reselling to unless otherwise specified in a legal contract between the two.

"Ownership and limitations: unless clearly stated otherwise in the Gig description text, when the work is delivered, the buyer is granted all intellectual property rights, including but not limited to, copyrights for the work delivered from the seller and the seller waives any and all moral rights therein. For removal of doubt, in custom created work (such as art work, design work, report generation etc.), the delivered service shall be the exclusive property of buyer. The seller expressly agrees to assign to buyer the copyright in any delivered services that do not meet the requirements of a work-for-hire under the U.S. Copyright Act. Additionally, independent of the U.S. Copyright Act, the seller agrees that unless he indicated otherwise in the Gig description, once the order is completed the seller assigns along with it to the buyer, to the fullest extent possible under the law, all of its rights, title and interest, if any, in and to the delivered service and waives any and all moral rights in connection therewith."

What's even more is that if a seller uses something he made for a buyer without explicit permission from the buyer, they are in fact breaking the law, and the TOS set forth by Fiverr.

Your best bet would be to shell out $5 to each seller you are wishing to resell for, and use those works as your references as they are legally yours.

Why not contact the designers on fiver first and ask if you can represent them?

Did someone bring up FTC? ..... SMH.

Dear OP, Please do not listen to people who tell you to jump hoops and loops to sell.
What you are doing is NOT wrong & NOT dishonest. You are just a middleman for profit.

Good wishes. Focus on what you are doing instead of asking people if what
you are doing is dishonest...

No. It is no dishonest. Firstly you bought from anyone. Now you can sell it to others. There is no problem. Microsoft company bought the SKYPE, now the authority of the Microsoft company sell the Skype to anyone. There is no obstacle. So I am sure you can sell them anywhere. There are many worker works in a group. Then the group leader sell the product again & again. But the group leader paid that workers one time only. Carry on.

Dave,

Now, if you DID purchase the work and trying to resell it. My advice will change accordingly:

According to the copyrights infringement: You are NOT doing anything illegal and not violating the copyrights because your purchases are YOUR property and you can definitely show them as examples to anyone in the world.

How am I saying this? It's mentioned under the 'Ownership' and 'Commercial Use License' sections here: https://www.fiverr.com/terms_of_service

According to the morales: Quoting from the Fiverr's Terms of Service page under the 'Ownership' section -

"the buyer is granted all intellectual property rights, including but not limited to, copyrights for the work delivered from the seller, and the seller waives any and all moral rights therein. The delivered work shall be considered work-for-hire under the U.S. Copyright Act. In the event the delivered work does not meet the requirements of work-for-hire or when US Copyright Act does not apply, the seller expressly agrees to assign to buyer the copyright in the delivered work"

Yep. Better ask the seller about it.

Became easy isn't it?

Cheers!

What are you doing its an old outsourcing model that worked back in 2011-2012 the most. from legal point you don't have any problem, unless you claim that you own and created those images. But i think you have moral problems here, and yes from morals point view, it's dishonest you are letting others with the feeling that you create and deliver these logos, it isn't illegal but not moral either.

Dishonest? Probably not. It's a grey area I'd guess. More importantly, how much money can you possibly make doing this? I can't imagine it's worth the time, unless you're really, really struggling. & if you're struggling that much, finding a part time job so you don't have to hussle so much, makes sense to me

You are really just the middleman, there's nothing wrong with that. But you shouldn't use images from someone's gig on Fiverr as you could run into copyright problems. Also its good to put a disclaimer somewhere that you outsource the logos.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I contacted several sellers on Fiverr and about half gave me permission to use their sample images.

Can I open a fast food joint and put a McDonalds sign by the road? I will sell them a hamburger but I didn't specificlly say it would be a McDonalds burger.

I am of the opinion that so long as you have contacted the providers on Fiverr and asked permission to use their images to sell their services, then you are definitely in the clear and I would feel no need mentioning this to the clients you find on Craigslist. Now if the client asks if you will be making these yourself, you are obligated to let them know you outsource the work. This stuff is pretty simple.

I had a horrible time getting clients on craigslist too.. maybe it's time to try paid traffic