Hello Friends,

I am in the contracting process with an artist for the design phase of a new publicly commissioned artwork.

The artist insists that they should have all rights and ownership over the design including all design documents and has requested that the City “license” their design.

Our City attorneys are rightly asking:

• Is this is common practice?
• Is it best practice for cities to relinquish all rights to design documents?
• Have you dealt with artist who “license” their work, and if so, how?
• And if your state requires open public records as Washington State does, how are you satisfying public records requirements?

I appreciate your collective wisdom on this one.

Best wishes,

Joshua Heim

Arts Program Manager

Department of Planning & Community Development

City of Bellevue

E-mail: jheim@bellevuewa.gov

Phone: 425.452.4105

FAX: 425.452.5247

Physical Address:

450 110^th Avenue, NE

Bellevue, WA  98004

Mailing Address:

PO Box 90012

Bellevue, WA  98009-9012