Custom work question

I have a question about custom work. If you were hired to make full perms anims for somebody at a reasonable US dollar/hour rate would you automatically assume that you would have to hand over the BVH files along with the animations when finished if this was not clarified before hand?
Or would you say that the work paid for is for the full perm animations only and that you remain the owner of the files? Should someone getting paid work count their lucky stars they are even getting work at all and just hand it all over?
Im knew to the industry and Id like to know what others think?
I feel like handing over the files is like a recording artist handing over the master recordings to the record buying customer. They wouldnt do it. Perhaps Im mistaken. Anyway Id appreciate others views on this.

They must have said one of two things;

1. I would like some full perm animations.

2. I would like some .bvh files.

If they asked for full permission animations (which i'm suspecting they did), then do not give them the .bvh files.

Ultimately, it is possible to create even more animaations from your .bvh files by manipulating and modifying them. Thus making them more valuable than the SL animation files.

This isn't what they paid for, they paid for animations.

Stick by your guns, if they asked for full perm anims, give them only that.

you're in the right, providing you didn't mislead them in anyway when agreeing to the job.

I'm gonna go against the grain here, because I know what a pain it is not to be able to tweak animations, especially ones intended for AO's, because offsets for things like ground sits are not controllable for AO, like they are for furniture. even further, animations may not be suited for different sized avatars, with tweaks needed to angles and rotations to suit particular avs.

I'd say in this case, go ahead and give it out, but make it clear in the future that included bvh files cost more because you are giving a person the ability to fully tweak, change, and produce other anims based off of the original.

Yes this is what I think too. They didnt stipulate that they wanted the files at all from the outset. They just offered an hourly rate to make 3 full perm anims. To me that says I am being paid for my time to create animations for them. I didnt mislead them at all ,they mislead me really by not making it clear what it was that they really wanted. Perhaps they thought it would cost more and were trying to get something for nothing. Oh well a lesson learnt.

Fair enough but these arent intended for AOs they are intended for a scripted object used by lots of different AVs so theyre never going to be right for everyone. Rotation and height etc will be possible to tweak using the scripts.

In that case I would also stick to my guns about no BVH unless requested and agreed upon at the start.

IMO asking for the BVH files is asking for more than one set of full perm anims as the BVH files can be modified in any way shape or form. Handing over the BVH when it wasn't agreed to originally just reminds me of what most people have done with the Poser default anim/pose sets. Make slight (if any) moderations and re-upload them. Even more so with customs as you are then stripped as the creator.

But I've always considered 'custom full perms' and 'bvh customs' seperate requests. I don't see why anyone wouldn't opt to hand over a bvh if they saw fit. IMO both ways work. Just if the agreement was for a 'custom anim' and not a 'bvh custom' or at least clearly indicated as such, then no bvh.