Creator manager Taylor Reilly has received dozens of casting calls from top advertising agencies since 1 October this year, each one “a form and a deadline, often within a day”. US brands will spend as much on paid amplification of creators’ videos in 2027 as creators earn from sponsored content, according to eMarketer, yet the rights to use those videos have no standard terms.
The usage rights Reilly used to throw into deals for free at her Australian agency are now, in the US, “one of the toughest points I negotiate”. The post itself is, as she puts it, “basically the audition now”. What is really being sold is usage rights, meaning the brand’s right to keep using a creator’s video. “A month on a creator’s page and a 90-day paid run across every placement a platform sells are not the same deliverable,” she writes. Almost every deal includes usage rights, she says, and more brands are pushing for them in perpetuity.
In Czechia, a brand cannot use the video without a licence
A brand that wants the video forever may not use it at all in Czechia without a licence. Submitting the video for approval does not entitle it to do so either. Where a licence exists but the contract does not define its scope, Section 2376 of the Czech Civil Code presumes that it applies to the extent necessary to achieve the purpose of the contract. Unless the purpose of the contract indicates otherwise, it is further presumed that the licence covers only the territory of the Czech Republic and the customary period, no longer than one year from the date it was granted.
In US deals, a usage licence typically covers thirty days, according to Digiday. Creator representatives usually calculate the price of the licence as a share of the paid advertising budget. Victoria Bachan, SVP of creators at the agency Wasserman, said in January 2026 that some “price that out as a per-30 days cost”. Those who ask for a share want, she said, “anywhere from 3% to 10%” of a $100,000 media budget. It depends on how wide the paid usage is.
Ads using creators’ videos sometimes keep running
On social platforms, according to Bachan, paid usage can be monitored by whether the ad code remains active, but beyond them there is no sophisticated way to track usage or to ask for additional payment. “Honestly half the time that brands pay for usage rights, they don’t even end up using the content, which is a funny thing when you’re going back and forth negotiating,” said Michael Curtis, head of talent management firm Proud Management. At other times his firm has had to message brands: “Hey, this ad is still running.”
On Meta, brands pay for ads made from a creator’s post through the partnership ads format. Meta told investors that the format’s annual revenue run rate more than doubled year on year in the first quarter of 2026, to $10 billion. Creators, according to Reilly, are “still being paid like influencers, but more and more their content is quietly being used like TV spots”.
On TikTok, ads with creator content have a 70% higher click-through rate than ads without creators, according to the platform’s internal analysis of posts from February 2024 to January 2025. The comparison holds at the same cost per thousand impressions. Trust in a face the audience chose to follow is, according to Reilly, “likely the first thing to wear thin when every post becomes a placement”. The forms for her October casting calls ask for the city, the platform and a minimum follower count. Price comes up only after a creator has been picked.
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