You paid for the logo. That does not make it yours

There is an invoice. A designer did the work. Files were delivered, and the logo is on the building, on the van, and on every quote the company sends out.

The rights to it can still sit with someone else.

This is not an edge case. Article 2 of the Dutch Copyright Act puts copyright with the maker, not with the client who commissioned it. Paying the invoice is payment for the work, not a transfer of rights. If a freelancer or an agency made the logo and nothing was recorded about transfer, the client holds a right of use. Nothing beyond that.

Most business owners assume the opposite. I paid for it, so it is mine. That holds for a machine. It does not hold for a design.

The rule is short, and so are the exceptions

Three situations decide who holds the rights.

Made by an outside party, with nothing agreed. Copyright sits with the maker. The client may use the work for the purpose it was commissioned for. What that purpose was turns out to be surprisingly hard to establish after the fact. Was the logo from the website also meant for the company vans? For packaging? For a sister company?

Made by an employee. Article 7 of the Copyright Act treats the employer as the maker when producing that kind of work was part of the employee's job. If the designer was on the payroll, this is settled.

Made under direction and supervision. Article 6 assigns copyright to whoever the work was created under the direction and supervision of. That means more than giving input. It assumes the creative decisions sat with the client. In practice the exception is narrow.

Transfer has to be in writing, and the bar went up this year

Copyright can be transferred, but not verbally and not by implication. There has to be a deed: a signed document setting out which rights pass over.

On 1 January 2026 the Dutch act strengthening copyright contract law came into force. Two things are needed since then. A written agreement to transfer, and a deed of assignment. What changed is that the agreement itself now has to be in writing, not only the assignment.

No notary is involved. An ordinary signed document is enough.

It only surfaces when it matters

While the logo is simply in use, nobody notices anything. It starts to bite at four moments, and all four come out of growth.

A change to the design. The company wants the logo modernised, or worked up by a different party. Whoever holds the copyright can object to it being adapted.

A trademark filing. The company wants to register the mark. The designer can oppose that.

Expansion. A second entity or an acquired business starts using the same brand. The original right of use does not automatically stretch that far.

A sale. This is the expensive one. Due diligence maps out the intellectual property. If it turns out the rights to the mark were never transferred, that becomes a finding, and it lands on the table at the moment price is being discussed.

In an acquisition there is a second layer. The rights not only have to sit with the company, they also have to demonstrably transfer with it. A general clause covering all remaining assets is not always specific enough to reach intellectual property.

Something stays with the maker even after transfer

This gets overlooked. The moral rights in article 25 do not travel with a transfer. The maker can keep objecting to distortion or damage to the work, and can claim attribution.

Anyone who wants that ruled out has to have it waived separately, in the same deed. A transfer without that clause is incomplete.

The check takes two minutes

Pull up the order confirmation, the quote, or the terms of the party that made the logo. Search for the word transfer, or overdracht in a Dutch contract.

If it is not there, the rights probably do not sit with the company. If there is wording about a licence or a right of use, that is a licence and not ownership. The difference is real.

If nothing was recorded, it can still be repaired. A deed can be drawn up after the fact, and most designers will cooperate. The conversation gets harder once the working relationship has ended or a dispute is running. That is an argument for doing it now instead of at the next step.

Why this belongs to the foundation and not to the legal annex

A brand is not a picture. It is an asset. It gets weighed in an acquisition, it has to be provable at a trademark filing, and at every expansion it has to be clear who controls it.

Anyone who has a logo made without arranging the transfer has bought an expression, not ownership. That difference stays invisible for years and then decides things.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. I build brand systems and run into this at companies that are growing or have just been acquired. If the check above leaves you in doubt, that is a question for a lawyer who works in intellectual property.