Influencer-Made Ad Content Demands a Copyright Balancing Act
Briefly

The evolution of advertising is marked by influencers self-filming their promotions, creating a conflict over copyright ownership with advertisers. Traditionally, advertisers owned the content due to the work-for-hire principle. Influencers, who are experts in their own visual style, are pushing back against this norm, believing they should retain ownership. Advertisers aim to maintain control of the content while leveraging the influencer's connection with their audience. As influencers grow in prominence, they seek copyright negotiations, highlighting the changing landscape of content creation and ownership in advertising.
The world of advertising campaign norms is changing as more social media influencers self-film advertisements on their phones, and are engaged by advertisers specifically because they're the expert of their own art direction and know what their followers are looking for.
Advertisers and media companies need to strike a balance between owning and controlling this content without losing the influencer's authenticity and connection to the influencer's audience that they're seeking to leverage.
Traditionally, when someone is brought in to create commercial content for an advertising campaign, that content is made on a work-for-hire basis. The rationale is that the content is created for a specific advertising purpose at the advertiser's direction.
Due to the rise of influencers self-filming the entirety of an advertisement, they understandably feel more emboldened to ask for copyright ownership during negotiations.
Read at Bloomberglaw
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