Should you give a brand usage rights forever?

What “forever” actually means

Usage rights are permission for the brand to use your video: where, for how long, and how. “Forever”, “perpetual” or “in perpetuity” means there's no end date. Unless the contract says otherwise, the brand can keep posting it and keep running it as a paid ad, with nothing more owed to you.

Those two uses are worth very different amounts. Organic use is the brand posting your video on its own pages. Paid use is the brand spending money to put it in front of people as an ad, and that's where most of a good video's value to a brand sits.

Why brands ask for it

Usually not to catch you out. An ad that works keeps working, and coming back to a creator every few months to re-license it is admin. Forever means they never have to. That convenience is worth something to them, which is exactly why it should cost something.

What it gives away

Your fee prices the brand's use of the video. A licence for a set window, say three months of paid use, means that if the brand wants to keep running it afterwards, it pays you again. Brands only keep running an ad while it earns more than it costs, so a renewal is a payment that arrives exactly when your video has proved itself. If it doesn't work, they stop, and you've lost nothing.

Forever removes that moment. The better the video does, the more forever costs you. The usage rights calculator puts numbers on it: three videos for £150 with forever usage, against the same £150 plus a 30% usage fee for every three months the ads run, comes to £330 if the brand is still running them a year later.

When forever is fine

• It's organic only. Forever permission to post on the brand's own channels, with paid ads excluded, gives away much less.
• It's priced as a buyout. If the fee already covers what the renewals would have brought in, forever is a fair trade, and it saves you the admin too.
• The portfolio is worth more than the fee, once. On a first deal, a recognisable brand on your page can matter more than the money. Even then, keep paid use time-limited: it's the part that grows.

What to say instead

Keep the deal and change the term. Something like:

“Happy to do the three videos for £150, with organic use on your channels. Running them as ads is £45 for each three months, renewable whenever you like.”

A brand that insists on forever is telling you the videos are worth more to it over time than it's offering. That's the moment to price a buyout, not to drop the request. For what UK creators typically charge for paid use and buyouts, Social Creator Club keeps a UK rates guide.

What to check in the contract

• Licence or assignment. A licence lets the brand use the video on the terms stated; you still own it. An assignment transfers the copyright to them. Under UK law an assignment only takes effect in writing, signed by the person giving it up, so look for the words “assign” or “assignment” before you sign anything.
• Paid use, and from whose account. Whether it covers ads at all, and whether ads can run from your own handle (whitelisting, or TikTok's Spark Ads), which is normally priced separately.
• Platforms, countries and length. Where it can appear, where in the world, and for how long.
• Edits. Whether they can cut it, re-voice it or combine it with other footage.
• Exclusivity. Whether you're barred from working with competitors, and for how long. That costs you work, so it should cost them money.
• Raw footage. Usually priced on top of the finished video.

When this doesn't hold

If you made the video as someone's employee, in the course of that job, the copyright is normally your employer's from the start, so it isn't yours to license. If the money on the table is a true buyout, the comparison above is already priced in. And for a large deal, have the contract read by someone qualified: this is general information, not legal advice.