Usage rights are the permissions a business holds to use content that someone else created, such as a photo, video, review or social post. They set out where the content may appear, for how long, whether it can be edited, and whether it can be used in paid advertising.
How usage rights work
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the person who creates a photo or video usually owns the copyright in it. The main exception is work made by an employee in the course of their job, which belongs to the employer. So when you hire a freelance photographer, commission a creator or repost a customer’s picture, the copyright normally stays with them unless something in writing says otherwise. What you need from them is a licence.
A licence is defined by a few variables:
- Channels: organic social only, your website, email, print, or paid ads on Meta, TikTok or YouTube.
- Duration: 30 days, 12 months or perpetual.
- Territory: the UK only, or wider.
- Exclusivity: whether the creator can make similar content for your competitors during the term.
- Edits: whether you can crop, cut, add text or combine the content with other footage.
An assignment is different: it transfers ownership outright and must be in writing and signed by the creator. Creators also have moral rights, including the right to be identified and to object to derogatory treatment of their work. Those can be waived, but only in writing. If identifiable people appear in the content, you also need their consent to be used in your marketing, and a person’s image counts as personal data under UK GDPR.
Why it matters
Paid use is where most disputes start. A creator might agree a fee for one Instagram post, and the brand then runs that video as an ad for six months. Paid use is usually priced separately because ads reach far more people and the content becomes closely tied to your brand. Running partnership ads from a creator’s handle needs their permission in the platform as well as in the contract.
Getting it wrong costs money and time. Rights holders can demand a retrospective licence fee, ask for content to be taken down mid-campaign, or bring a claim. Stock images carry their own rules too, which image licensing covers in more detail.
Common mistakes
- Agreeing a creator fee by direct message with no written terms on channels or duration.
- Assuming that paying for content means you own it.
- Putting organic-only content into ads, or continuing to run it after the licence has ended.
- Reposting customer photos with a “credit” and no permission.
- Forgetting the music, fonts or third-party footage inside a video, which the creator may not have cleared for you.
How to act on it
Put a short written licence in place before any content is made. It should name the content, list the channels, state paid use explicitly, give a start and end date, describe permitted edits and set the fee. A creator’s media kit often lists rates for extra usage, which gives you a starting point. Keep a simple register of every licensed asset with its expiry date, and check it before an ad account reuses old creative.
For user-generated content, ask in a comment or message, and keep the reply as your record. For anything high value, have a solicitor review your template once and reuse it. I check creative rights as part of Facebook ads management, because an ad paused for a rights problem loses its learning as well as its reach.