What “Exclusive Rights” Really Costs You

The Billboard in Russia

A colleague of mine did a brand deal years ago that included family photos. She didn’t think anything of it. About a year later, a friend of hers was traveling in Russia and spotted her family’s photo on billboards, everywhere, in an ad for a completely different company. It looked like the brand she’d sold the rights to originally had turned around and resold those rights. She had no idea she and her family were plastered across Russia until someone she knew happened to see it in person. And she had no recourse.

That’s an extreme example. But it’s what can happen when you hand over exclusive rights to your image and likeness, including the right to alter your content in ways you’d never agree to on your own. Once you take payment, they own it. They can do whatever they want with it. It’s not worth twenty to fifty dollars to give someone that kind of control, and with AI, the risk isn’t hypothetical anymore. I saw a story on Facebook recently about a creator whose video was taken by an unscrupulous brand, the product swapped out through AI, her image left in, so it looked like she was promoting something she never touched. The video she’d actually posted to Amazon had nothing to do with what was circulating under her face. We’re setting ourselves up for more of this simply by the nature of what we do.

I started my career decades ago as a brand ambassador for major companies, signing exclusive contracts included. Because of that experience, I will never work for a brand that way again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take free brand samples so I can review products for an Amazon shoppable video. But that’s the extent of what I’ll agree to. No timelines. No creative control. No briefs they think I need to adhere to. A shoppable video I create on my own timeline, saying what I want to say.

One of the reasons you do the Amazon Influencer Program in the first place is the freedom it gives you: to work for yourself, to be creative, to set your own hours and your own standards. This is a job people take because they value their own time and their own creative process.

I’ve seen ridiculous things, like a brand sending a sample for review and then demanding a redo because the video wasn’t done the way they wanted. That’s not how this works. This isn’t UGC. Don’t bend to what a brand demands of you, and don’t let them bully you. You have two options: write back and tell them you’re the creator and that’s how you chose to make the video, or block them.

Some brand deals work out fine. But by and large, once a brand pays for content, they start to think they’ve bought creative control, even though they hired you for your creativity in the first place. At least for me, no amount of money is worth handing someone else the right to republish, resell, or reuse what I made however they see fit. That goes double if children are in the video.

If you do UGC, that’s a different arrangement, and there’s nothing wrong with it if you know what you’re signing up for. I don’t do UGC, mostly for the reasons above. But I want you to see this clearly before you get the email that says, “Send over the raw footage of your video.” Never send raw footage to a brand. Once they post it on Amazon, that footage is dead to you, it’s duplicate content now. Beyond that, you’ve handed over every issue I just listed.

If you’re going to hand over raw footage anyway and you’re at peace with it, charge at least twelve times what you’d expect to make in commission. Think about what that video would have earned you over a year, and price accordingly.

I hear it constantly from newer creators: “I just want to build a good relationship with them.” That’s the biggest lie in PR. The brand manager you’re building that relationship with will be gone in six months, and you’ll start over with someone new who has no idea who you are. Brands have zero loyalty to you. I don’t care how special they make you feel, how much they praise your content, or how fabulous they say everything you do is. They tell every creator the same thing. They will drop you for the next creator with better stats in a heartbeat. This is a business. You’re a commodity. They’re using you, and if you want to use them right back with your eyes open, that’s a fair trade. Just make sure you’re weighing all of it before you hand over raw footage for free, or for some price that doesn’t come close to what it’s worth.