The Horror Story of Overreaching Licenses and Unintended Assignments

Let’s look at the horror story of overreaching licenses and unintended assignments.

The true horror happens when a contract is poorly drafted or poorly understood.

For instance, an influencer thinks they’re giving the brand permission to use a short TikTok video for one month, but the contract grants a perpetual royalty-free worldwide license to use the content in any medium now known or later devised. That creator has effectively given the brand permission to use that short clip forever in any context, print ads or television or any other context or medium, without paying the creator another dime.

Or consider a contract in which a business hires a marketing agency, but that doesn’t have anything in the contract about assigning copyright ownership to the business. That means the business might not own its own marketing material and the agency may remain the owner. You can see how that could end up being a huge problem and lead to expensive legal battles over who really owns the material and who can use, change, or sell it. Would you want material made for your business to use also sold to some other business with just a few minor changes?