Licensing, Assignments and Modeling Agreements
You received an agreement for a photography assignment? Are you an illustrator licensing out your images? Are you hiring a model, and need to make sure your rights are protected? Are you licensing work for display but not merchandising?
We often see agreements in the industry that do not protect the creative individual, leaving him or her open to problems with licensing, model rights, fees, copyright issues and more.
Our experienced copyright lawyers can review your agreement for you, make recommendations, and, if necessary, negotiate on your behalf.
What is a Legal Agreement Review?
With a legal review of your agreement, our attorneys will review what is written as well as what you expect. We speak with you first and find out what your needs and expectations are.
We examine the agreement to determine if the language of the contract does what you expect it to do.
We also identify potential problems – missing terms in the agreement – that may leave you at risk. Does the agreement fail to discuss commercial use? Do you need model releases? Are there limits on duration and circulation? Can images be used for merchandising along with ads?
These questions and more must be addressed.
How Agreement Review Works
Once you receive an agreement for your assignment, we will speak with you to be sure we understand what your expectations are. We take down all of the major and minor points, including how things will be licensed, restrictions on use, whether model agreements are required and in place, payment terms and more.
Our lawyers then scrutinize the written agreement. We ensure that what you want in there is covered. We also identify other things in the agreement you may not be aware of.
Finally, we identify issues we recognize that you may have missed and make recommendations on what should be added or removed to accomplish your goals.
Why This is So Important
As with any contract, you need to have a “meeting of the minds.” Basically, everyone should be on the same page and have the same expectations. All too often we see situations where the parties are getting along well, but are using a vaguely drafted agreement.
After the shoot is complete and images are delivered, the photographer and model see the images used on product packaging. Perhaps your client genuinely believed he had the right to do this but the agreement did not spell this out explicitly.
Perhaps the agreement allowed merchandising but was silent as to the types of merchandise it could be used with, the quantity of items it could appear on, whether the image could be retouched or combined with other images, etc.
The point is this: unless you account for everything, there can be confusion. If there is confusion, there will be issues, and, if possible, you want to avoid those issues.
Call Sanders Law Group Today
The copyright lawyers at Sanders Law Group can help you with your agreement reviews. We understand the business of creative individuals like you, and know what is required to protect your rights.
Call Sanders Law Group today at 888-348-3090 for a free consultation.
