3 Contract Tips for Content Creators

This blog post was first published on 9 November 2019

An email has just arrived into your inbox from one of your favourite brands, they want work with you. Here’s 3 things you need to watch out for once you’ve finished celebrating!!!

Entire Agreement

If you’ve worked with brands before you’ll know that for the next few days there will be an element of back and forth. You’ll be asked to share ideas of the type of content you could create and between you and the brand or their PR agency you’ll agree exactly what you need to create and when.

If you receive a contract, take a look for an ‘entire agreement clause’ this is something that states that the contract forms the whole agreement between the parties. That means that all of those emails and any telephone calls in the run up can not be relied upon. If the brand has made promises by phone and email, every single element needs to make its way into the contract or it doesn’t count.

Exclusivity

More often than not a brand is going to ask you to be exclusive to them. This will usually be along the lines of them stating that you cannot promote another similar brand within a certain period. Be careful as to how widely this is drafted. If it says “any other brand collaboration” that is really wide. You are expecting it to state “any other [shoe/perfume/watch] collaboration”, stating that you cannot promote another similar product. If you see an exclusivity clause you don’t have to refuse to sign the contract but you may wish to consider the value of your exclusivity and whether your fee reflects the fact you may be prohibited from working on other projects whilst the campaign is live.

Keep an eye on the length of the term too. The exclusivity clause may be longer than the promotion dates for the campaign. You may be asked to agree not to work with any other sports brand for the following three months. Again, ensure your fee reflects this.

Ownership and Usage

If you’ve created an image then you own the copyright in it, which essentially means you get to choose what happens to it. It’s likely that a brand will want you to agree to them using the image. You may want to agree this outright. Or you may wish to think about how long you want to allow that for. You can charge additional usage rights for long term usage and if you want to do this you will need to ensure that the contract expressly covers for it.

Working with brands doesn’t need to feel overwhelming. These tips are a few things to bear in mind before you sign on the dotted line.

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