My policy has usually been that any work I release and am paid for, that ends the contract unless otherwise specified. Any assets that I have remain with me, although I don't retain the rights to any IP that was provided. I do this because I do not have interest in releasing my techniques, I don't want people snooping around my files discovering how I may have achieved a certain look/animation/visual etc.
The tricks I learn over the years naturally I reuse for other projects, they become the basis for the various templates I utilize. There are situations where I do provide the original files, but that is agreed upon up front. For the more simple projects providing the software assets is fine, for the complex stuff I negotiate up front, because they can take your hard work and give it to someone else that will make changes for cheap, or even free.
IMO $500 is way, way too low, but this should have been discussed before the contract was agreed on.
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