Legal support for content creators and streaming platforms, covering the licensing, performance-rights, and revenue agreements that turn an audience into a business, drafted so the upside is captured and the obligations are clear.
The right to monetize gameplay comes from the publisher's content policy, a revocable license, not from copyright law. The music under a stream is covered by the platform's performance license while it is live and by no synchronization license once it is a VOD, and the editor who cut a video owns the cut unless a signed writing says otherwise. Most channels rest on all three, and none is written down.
Disclosure rules bind the creator personally. Under the FTC's Endorsement Guides, revised in 2023, a paid mention is disclosed in the video itself rather than in the caption and repeated through a live stream, with the endorser liable alongside the brand. In Illinois since July 2024 a creator who features a child under sixteen in monetized content must hold a share of gross earnings in trust for the child until eighteen, which the child can enforce.
We act for creators and for the platforms and managers across the table from them, with one method: read what has already been signed, register the name and the original assets, and price the audience in terms that carry into the next renewal.
Drafting and negotiating the agreements between creators and platforms that set the terms on which content is produced, hosted, and distributed, so the relationship is clear and the creator's position is protected.
Allocation of licensing and performance rights across a stream's layered intellectual property, clearing the music, visual assets, and other rights a creator uses while preserving the rights that should stay with the creator.
Negotiation of the revenue terms behind a creator's business, meaning how income is calculated, shared, and paid across platforms, subscriptions, and sponsorships, so the upside is captured in terms the creator has negotiated.
Sponsorship and endorsement agreements drafted to protect a creator's interests, with terms, exclusivity, and deliverables that hold and the advertising and endorsement compliance these arrangements require written in.
Protection of a creator's own intellectual property, including name, content, and original assets, alongside the clearances needed to use third-party material, which reduces the risk of an infringement dispute.
Guidance on the advertising, endorsement, and licensing requirements that apply to content creation and streaming, with agreements structured for rules that vary by jurisdiction and keep changing.
The management or network agreement signed in year one binds the rest: a sunset clause paying commission for years after termination, a power of attorney to sign for the creator, and exclusivity reaching every channel the creator starts next. In California a manager who procures brand deals without a talent-agency license risks a voided contract.
A platform keeps its copyright safe harbor only by terminating repeat infringers, so the strike system is statutory, not editorial. A counter-notice that restores a clip is a sworn statement consenting to federal jurisdiction, and the claimant then has ten to fourteen business days to sue. The defense is a clearance file assembled beforehand.
The 2023 Endorsement Guides put the disclosure in the video and make a creator who omits it liable alongside the brand. It belongs in the deliverables schedule beside the usage window and the category exclusivity. Any clause contemplating purchased followers or reviews comes out; the FTC's 2024 rule makes that a civil-penalty offense.
A platform's subscription and ad splits are set by tier and rarely negotiable. What is negotiated is the exclusivity deal: the guaranteed minimum, the hours-streamed obligation it is conditioned on, and the carve-out for short-form video elsewhere. A network's commission comes off before the money reaches the creator, so read the base before the percentage.
A minor may disaffirm a contract, and only a few states, California and New York among them, offer court approval that binds one. California holds fifteen percent of a minor performer's gross earnings in trust, and Illinois has required one for children in monetized content since 2024. A parent's signature cures none of it.
In the United Kingdom the Advertising Standards Authority treats an undisclosed paid post as misleading and holds the brand responsible with the creator, the label visible before the viewer engages. The United Arab Emirates has required a license for paid influencer content since 2018. A sponsorship running in three markets is drafted to the strictest.
Before anything is negotiated, we read what the creator has already signed: the platform terms of service, any early MCN or talent-management agreement, and the standing brand contracts. The audit maps who currently owns the channel name, the VODs, and the revenue splits, and flags the exclusivity and term-renewal clauses that quietly bind everything that follows.
A stream is layered IP, so we clear it layer by layer: the game publisher's content-creator license and EULA carve-outs, music and overlay licensing, performance rights, and the creator's own marks and original assets. Those marks and assets are registered and allocated so a DMCA claim or a publisher policy change doesn't take the catalog down with it.
With the rights settled, the money terms get negotiated deal by deal: platform exclusivity or multi-platform carve-outs, sponsorship deliverables and usage windows, and morals and termination triggers on both sides. FTC endorsement-disclosure obligations are written into the deliverables rather than left to the creator mid-stream.
When the platform deal or anchor sponsorship comes up for renewal, the earlier work becomes bargaining power: owned IP, a clean, analytics-backed deliverable history, and no orphaned exclusivity. We run the renegotiation, or the exit, so the audience moves with the creator rather than with the contract.
The platform owns the pipe. The paper decides who owns the audience.
Five clauses carry the deal. The term and its renewal mechanics come first, because an auto-renewal with a short notice window is how a creator stays bound after the relationship has soured. Exclusivity is defined by platform and by format, with a carve-out for short-form video and for channels the creator has not started yet. A guaranteed minimum is conditioned on hours streamed, so the agreement says what happens to it in a month the creator is ill or suspended. The VODs and clips stay with the creator. And the exit clause returns the channel name and URL if the platform changes its policy or the deal ends, so the audience moves with the person who built it.
The creator owns the copyright in the original elements of the stream, the commentary, the camera feed and the overlays, from the moment they are recorded. The gameplay underneath is the publisher's copyrighted work, used under the publisher's content policy, which is a revocable license and not a right. Recorded music needs a synchronization license once the stream becomes a VOD or a clip, because the platform's performance license covers only the live broadcast. And anything made by a freelancer, an editor's cut or a designer's emotes, belongs to the freelancer unless a signed writing assigns it or designates it a work made for hire, since the Copyright Act will not transfer ownership on a handshake.
As a deliverables schedule with a rights grant attached. The schedule lists each piece of content, its approval window and the disclosure that goes in it, since under the FTC's Endorsement Guides the creator is liable for a missing disclosure alongside the brand. The rights grant says how long the brand may run the content, in which media and territories, and whether it may run paid ads from the creator's own handle, a practice called whitelisting that is priced and time-limited separately. Exclusivity is defined by product category and by duration, the morals clause runs in both directions, and payment terms are tied to delivery rather than to the brand's internal approvals.
Yes, and the rules attach to the creator rather than to the contract. The FTC's Endorsement Guides govern every paid mention, and the Commission's 2024 rule on fake reviews and purchased followers carries civil penalties. A channel directed to children under thirteen is subject to the children's privacy rules, and the platform's designation of content as made for kids follows from them. Illinois, California and Minnesota now require a trust for minors who appear in monetized family content. Abroad, the United Kingdom's advertising code requires the ad label to be visible before the viewer engages, and the United Arab Emirates requires a license for paid influencer content. The agreement is drafted so that compliance is a term of the deal rather than an afterthought of the creator's.
For a minor, the first protection is that the contract may not bind at all: in most states a minor can disaffirm an agreement, and only a handful, California and New York among them, offer the court approval that prevents it. California and New York also require fifteen percent of a minor performer's gross earnings to be held in trust, and Illinois has required a trust for children featured in monetized content since July 2024. For a first-time creator of any age the risks are contractual: a management agreement with post-term commission, exclusivity that reaches future channels, and a brand deal whose usage rights outlast the fee. We read each one before it is signed and we explain what it costs to leave.
We have worked in esports and gaming since 2021, for creators and for the platforms, networks and brands on the other side of their agreements. The work runs in the order the arc above describes: an audit of everything already signed, clearance of the publisher license, the music and the freelance assets layer by layer, trademark registration for the channel name and original marks, and then the negotiation of platform, sponsorship and management terms with the disclosure obligations written in. One partner is accountable for the whole relationship, and the same partner is on the call at renewal.
Sponsorship and endorsement agreements drafted to protect players, teams, and leagues, with terms, exclusivity, and deliverables that hold and advertising and endorsement compliance written in.
Explore →Intellectual property and licensing strategy for the many assets inside a game, from music, visual assets, characters, and stories to trademarks, protected and cleared so the rights survive scrutiny.
Explore →Careful negotiation of player contracts covering compensation, rights, and individual interests, with the additional protections that matter for young and first-time competitors entering binding agreements.
Explore →Tournament rule design that accounts for the applicable laws, including anti-gambling considerations and integrity provisions, drafted to function across the jurisdictions where an event is run.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.