Many creator payment disputes begin the day the contract is signed. By the time payment becomes an issue, the work has already been completed, the campaign has gone live and leverage has largely disappeared. Many of those disputes could have been avoided if the payment provisions had received the same attention as the headline business …
Why Most Creator Payment Disputes Are Lost At Signing Read More »
On August 12, Twitch shifted the default settings on every channel so that a broad range of content (including live streams, VODs, clips, highlights, and the text and images on a channel) can be used to train Amazon’s generative AI models unless a creator opts out. The shift has drawn plenty of attention from the …
Twitch’s New AI Terms Affect Developers, Too: How to Mitigate Risks to Game IP Read More »
Here is a sentence that makes everyone feel warm and cozy: “You retain ownership rights in your content.” Almost all platform’s terms of service include some version of this, and in each case, it is technically true. The copyright is yours. You can register it, license it elsewhere, and sue an infringer who is not …
What Creators Should Know About Platform Licenses and AI Training Read More »
In our “VTuber IP 101: Protecting Avatars, Content, and Branding” blog post, we talked about what intellectual property rights VTubers already have, when they have to register those rights, and what protections different intellectual property rights give. We also briefly mentioned certain legal actions that VTubers can take after they establish their rights. When it …
VTuber IP 201: DMCA Strategy and Personal Privacy Read More »
In the creator economy, unscripted entertainment and video game production, chain of title is everything. If a producer or studio cannot show it has the rights it needs in the footage, performance, voice, name, and likeness appearing in a project, that lack of rights can derail distribution, financing, insurance, or an acquisition. Publicity and appearance …
Signing Your Life Away: The Wild West of Publicity Releases Read More »
What Creators Can Do Now to Protect Against Deepfakes Imagine a creator waking up to find fans tagging them in a video. They click on the link and the video pops up. There, they see an AI-generated double, wearing their face and hawking a cryptocurrency scam, in their voice, with their cadence. Somewhere else, a …
A Creator’s Face, Voice, and Brand: AI Is Coming for All Three Read More »
One of the most common misconceptions we see in our work with creators, despite the fact that it’s been a topic of creator economy discussion for some time now, is the belief that a following equals ownership. Unfortunately, it does not. On most major platforms, creators do not actually “own” their audiences. Platforms do. Creators …
Audience Ownership for Creators: Legal Realities and Risk Mitigation Strategies Read More »
Intellectual property (IP) is one of the business cornerstones for creators. Whether a video game developer, a tabletop game designer, an author, a content or other creator – copyrights and trademarks let creators protect their creations and livelihoods. Enforcing those rights helps prevent fraudulent and infringing actors from stealing goodwill and money from a creator …
Fan Content Policies: Working with your Community Read More »
What is a Co-op, exactly? “Co-op” is shorthand for “workers’ cooperative”, meaning a business owned and democratically controlled by its workers. That usually amounts to shared profits, shared management, and in theory, improved work conditions by virtue of that representation at the management level. Practically speaking, a workers’ cooperative can be formed under various legal …
Why You May Not Want A Co-op, Even If You Think You Do Read More »
A few years ago, contracts with artificial intelligence clauses felt novel. They appeared here and there in experimental projects, in creative projects where guarantees of “No AI” were desired, or in deals involving AI tools. Now, AI-related clauses are showing up routinely, even in agreements where AI is not the focus of the work at …