Glossary
Terms from the adult industry, explained
On set, in the contract and on the statement you will meet terms that nobody explains and that still decide money and rights. They are listed here — from buyout and usage rights to the day rate, each with what it actually means for you.
A
- Aftercare
- The planned follow-up after a shoot that accompanies the transition out of the scene and back into ordinary life.
- Age verification
- The documented check of legal age by identity card or passport that every serious production requires before the first shoot day.
- Agency commission
- The fee an agency receives for arranging a booking, which in serious work is paid by the production, not the performer.
B
- B-Roll
- Extra material beside the main takes — detail shots, transitions and atmosphere — that has to be covered separately by the usage rights.
- Behind the Scenes
- Recordings of the shoot itself, which often show faces and situations nobody had intended for publication.
- Business expense
- A professionally caused expense that reduces taxable profit and has to be provable by a receipt to be recognised.
- Buyout
- A one-off payment with which a production permanently acquires the usage rights in the recordings as described in the contract.
C
- Call Sheet
- The day's disposition of a production: a sheet that records location, times, people involved and the planned scenes for a single shoot day.
- Cash-basis profit calculation
- The simple profit calculation for the self-employed: business income minus business expenses gives the profit of a calendar year.
- Confidentiality clause
- A contractual duty not to pass on a production's internals — it must not, however, stop you reporting a crime or taking legal advice.
- Consent
- The informed, voluntary and at any time withdrawable agreement to every single act in front of the camera.
- Consent declaration
- The data-protection permission for a production to process image, sound and other personal data for specified purposes.
- Continuity
- The visible match between setups: hair, clothing, jewellery and position have to fit across separately shot takes.
- Contractual penalty
- An amount fixed in the contract in advance that becomes due if a named duty is breached, without anyone having to prove a loss.
- Custom Video
- A commissioned production for a single customer that is created to their brief and is fixed in writing before it is made.
- Cut
- The command that stops a running take at once: direction gives it for professional reasons, performers at any time and without a reason.
D
- Day rate
- The fee agreed in advance for a complete shoot day, regardless of how many scenes or motifs arise that day.
- Direction
- The content lead on set: direction decides on framing, process and repeats, not on the performers' limits.
- Duo
- A production form with two performers in which tests, matching of limits and the process arrangement have to be settled before the booking.
E
- Exclusive contract
- A contract that binds you to one production for a period and excludes shoots for others and often your own publications as well.
- Expenses
- Additional costs around a shoot day such as travel, overnight stay and meals, whose assumption has to be settled before you accept.
- Exploitation rights
- The economic use of the recordings by the rights holder: distribution, licensing to third parties, compilations and reuse.
F
- False self-employment
- A formally self-employed activity that is in fact dependent employment because instruction and integration predominate.
- Fan platform
- A portal on which you offer your own content against a subscription or individual purchase and thereby earn independently of commissioned shoots.
G
- Geoblocking
- The technical block that makes a title available only in certain countries and can be agreed in the contract as a territorial exclusion.
- Group scene
- A production form with several people involved that brings longer shoot days, more waiting time and a clearly higher coordination effort.
H
- Hair and makeup
- Hair and makeup on the shoot day: a separate work step before shooting that is continuously retouched between takes.
- Half-day fee
- The fee for a shortened engagement of usually four to five hours, which for good reason sits above half a full day rate.
I
- ID-Shot
- A short recording in which the performer holds their ID document to the camera, so that person, document and shoot can be matched.
- Intimacy Coordinator
- An independent specialist on set who prepares and choreographs intimate scenes and watches over the limits of the people involved.
L
M
- Model contract
- The written agreement between production and performer that fixes performance, fee, usage rights and limits of a shoot.
- Model Release
- The consent to publication of the recordings: it does not regulate the work on set, but the exploitation of the material afterwards.
- Mutual consent
- The German legal term for the requirement that every sexual act is carried by the recognisable will of everyone involved.
N
- No-List
- The separately kept list of acts that are excluded for you and are not negotiated.
P
- Payout interval
- The rhythm in which a platform transfers earned credit, and often the more decisive factor for your liquidity than the rate.
- Payout rate
- The percentage share of the turnover achieved that a platform pays out to the creator; the range runs from 25 to 90 percent.
- POV
- A recording form in which the camera takes the viewpoint of a person involved and is usually operated by that person themselves.
- Props
- Every object that appears in the picture or is used in the scene; it is supplied by the production and not by the performers.
R
- Right of withdrawal
- The right to withdraw a data-protection consent, which usually leaves the usage rights granted by contract in finished material untouched.
- Right to one’s own image
- The right to decide for yourself whether pictures of you may be distributed or shown in public.
- Right to stop
- The right to end a running shoot at any time and without a reason, regardless of how far the production has progressed.
S
- Safeword
- A word agreed in advance that ends the running take at once, without anyone asking for the reason.
- Script
- In erotic productions usually a rundown rather than a dialogue book: it records which scenes arise in which order and with which content.
- Sedcard
- The compact working document with which an agency presents you to productions: stage name, key data, region and a few telling pictures.
- Set
- The shoot site as a workplace with regulated access: who may be present during a take is an arrangement and not a question of courtesy.
- Shoot day
- The billing unit of the industry: a working day on a production, paid with a day rate and independent of how much material arose.
- Small-business VAT scheme
- A choice in VAT law: no VAT on your invoices, but also no deduction of input VAT paid.
- Softcore
- A production form without explicit depiction that opens other exploitation paths and therefore works with other usage rights and fee structures.
- Solo
- A production form with a single performing person, the smallest crew, usually a short shoot day and no coordination with scene partners.
- Stage name
- The name under which you are published, and the most important tool for separating work and private life.
- STI-Panel
- A bundled laboratory test for sexually transmitted infections whose result has to be available on the shoot day.
- Supporting role
- A time-limited engagement with less picture share, usually in the lower part of the fee span and often the first path into a production.
T
- Take
- A single recording pass from the start of the camera to the stop; a finished scene almost always arises from several of them.
- Traffic-light code
- A three-step feedback system on set: green continue, yellow slower or a pause, red an immediate stop.
- Trusted person
- A person you trust who may accompany you to the casting or who, outside the industry, knows where you are.
U
- Usage rights
- The permission you grant a production in the recordings, limited by period, territory and channels of publication.
V
- VAT
- The tax on your services that you charge the client, remit to the tax office and offset against input VAT paid.
Y
- Yes-No-Maybe list
- The written working document in which you assign every possible act to one of three columns.
Ein Begriff fehlt?
Schreib uns, welcher. Wir nehmen ihn auf — und beantworten deine Frage dazu gleich mit.