Modelovereenkomsten auteursrechten/en

When you as an organisation want to work with freelancers (e.g. photographers), it is important to make clear agreements and set them down on paper – and there are a number of model agreements available for this.
In this article, you’ll learn:

• Why is it important to make agreements with freelancers?
• What should such an agreement include?
• What types of agreements can you make with a freelancer?

Model agreements help people and organisations in the cultural field to draw up clear and legally secure agreements with minimum effort and (legal) costs when creating content that’s protected by intellectual property rights. In most cases there are two parties involved: a client and a contractor, either as individuals or organisations/companies. When no (written) agreements are drawn up, the client pays the contractor only for carrying out the assignment, in which case there are no agreements about the intellectual property rights or the use of the content created. In this case, this means that all rights rest with the content creator and that others – including the client – need to ask the creator for permission for every use.

This tool includes six scenarios in which a client can work together with a contractor. Each of these scenarios has been put in a model agreement. In this specific case, the starting point was an agreement between a theatre company as the client and a freelance photographer as the contractor, but these model agreements can also be a valuable starting point for other types of collaboration (e.g. in other disciplines and for different types of assignments).

The six scenarios developed offer a selection of options between the two most common situations so far: maximum transfer of rights to the client or no transfer of rights or usage licences at all:

1. Agreement with external photographer (CC))
2. Agreement with external photographer (CC + alienation)
3. Agreement with external photographer (CC + no transfer)
4. Agreement with external photographer (alienation) (scenario 4)
5. Agreement with external photographer (restricted licence)
6. Agreement with external photographer (no transfer) (scenario 6)

Each of these scenarios offers both the client, contractor and third parties different freedoms and restrictions:

	What can/may the photographer do?	What can/may the client do?	What are third parties allowed to do?
1. Full Creative Commons BY(-SA)	Free use of all photos as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use)	Free use of all photos as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use, subject to respect for moral rights)	Free use of all photos as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use, subject to respect for moral rights)
2. Partial Creative Commons BY(-SA), partial transfer of rights to the client	Free use of the photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Permission from the client required for use of other photos	Free use of the photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Free use of all other photos with respect for moral rights as the only condition	Free use of the photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Permission from the client required for use of other photos
3. Partial Creative Commons BY(-SA), partial rights with the photographer	Free use of the photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Free use of all other photos	Free use of all photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Permission from the photographer required for use of other photos	Free use of the photos covered by CC as long as they are compatible with the licence (including edits and commercial use). Permission from photographer required for use of other photos
4. Transfer of rights to the client	Permission from the client required for use of the photos	Free use of the photos with respect for moral rights as the condition	Permission from the client required for use of the photos
5. Rights rest with the photographer with usage licence for the client	Free use of the photos	Free use of the photos as long as they are compatible with the forms and methods of use permitted in the agreement. Permission from the photographer required for every other use	Permission from the photographer required for use of the photos
6. Rights rest with the photographer without usage licence for the client	Free use of the photos	Permission from the photographer required for use of the photos	Permission from the photographer required for use of the photos

Authors: Bart Magnus (meemoo) and Joris Deene (Everest Law => model agreements)