7. Rightsholder and User Issues
A. Rightsholder Issues (continued)
Terms of Agreement
The terms of an agreement between a rightsholder and a service provider vary between industries, although common clauses exist in nearly all agreements. Among these are warranties and indemnities, in which the rightsholder may be asked to certify that he or she is indeed the copyright owner, has obtained all releases and clearances necessary for use of the work, and holds the service provider harmless if any copyright claims are made on the work that the provider has licensed on his or her behalf. Other common clauses include automatic renewals, methods for handling disputes, term of the agreement, rights that are assigned, and conditions for termination of the agreement.7
The duration of agreements varies by industry. For music, it is typically one or two years, with an automatic renewal. Stock photography, footage, and illustration agencies require a three- to five-year agreement from their rightsholders, although at least one image provider requests as long as a ten-year term. Nearly all service providers agree to remove a rightsholder’s intellectual property from their repertoires within a reasonable period of time if the rightsholder chooses not to renew the contract. To assure continuity and service to users who may have already entered into a license that includes the rightsholder’s works, providers may require that the intellectual property under license at the time of a rightsholder’s withdrawal be kept in the repertoire until the end of the user’s license period.