Usage rights

Usage rights are the permissions you grant a production in the recordings: where it may show them, for how long and through which routes. As a performer you are a performing artist, and the copyright act gives you your own rights in your performance. Those are exactly the rights the contract grants to the production.

Period, territory, channels

Every usage right has three dimensions. Each one changes what can become of the material.

• Period: limited to a set number of years, or unlimited. The industry default is unlimited, tied to a Buyout.
• Territory: the German-speaking area, Europe or worldwide. Territorial limits are implemented technically through Geoblocking, and that can be circumvented.
• Channels: own website, streaming portals, physical media, distribution through third parties, advertising and preview material, social media.

A contract that only speaks of free use names none of these dimensions. That is not a drafting error; it is the actual decision: that sentence determines whether your scene still sits on a portal you do not know today in ten years’ time.

Simple or exclusive

A simple usage right allows the production to use the material and leaves you the option of granting the same rights to further exploiters. An exclusive usage right shuts everyone else out, including you, unless the contract provides an exception.

In erotic productions the exclusive right is usual. The reason is economic: material that several outlets can sell in parallel sells poorly.

The practical consequence hits you directly. Your own uses are then not a given either. Anyone who wants a clip for the Sedcard or for their own fan platform needs an express permission in the contract. Asking for that is easy before the signature and barely promising afterwards.

Why granted rights stay where they are

The copyright act knows constellations in which rights revert or a recall comes into play. In practice that path is long, expensive and rarely fully successful, and it usually presupposes that the other side cooperates or a court decides.

The real reason sits in the chain. The production licenses on to distributors, distributors to platforms, platforms show preview material with third parties. Even if you achieve something against your contracting party, copies run on elsewhere. What was once public is not technically safely recoverable.

The most effective lever is therefore the review before the signature, not the complaint afterwards. Which clauses count there is worked out in the article the model contract clause by clause.

Questions you can ask

• How long do the rights run, and what happens after they expire?
• For which territory are they granted?
• Which channels are included, which expressly not?
• May the production sublicense to third parties?
• May you yourself use clips for a Sedcard or your own channels?

Anyone who has those five answers in writing has understood the most important part of the contract. This entry places the basics in context and is not a substitute for legal advice.