Working with talents, choosing shooting locations, developing scripts. Professionals in the audiovisual industry certainly enjoy exciting activities, at least for those outside the industry. Still, nobody imagines the large amount of legal matters involved in the process and how important they are for the production. Almost everything that a producer does has legal consequences. Many of the legal issues are either directly related to or part of a process called “rights clearance.”
In the audiovisual industry, rights clearance is an essential process to ensure that an audiovisual project is legally viable and that the legal risks derived from exploiting the final content are maintained at an acceptable level. As will be explained in this guide, clearance should start as early as possible and be incorporated in the planning and budget. The first objective is that anything that appears in front of the camera is already “cleared” and approved.
Among the different rights that need to be cleared, intellectual property (IP) is one of the most important. Personality or image rights are another. Those two sets of rights are the main pillars that fulfill requirements related to rights clearance.
Rights clearance is a required step under some financing agreements and before the content reached international distribution, sales agents work on distribution it abroad or even before a streaming platform accepts to license it . It is also specifically examined when obtaining errors and omissions (E&O) insurance. A more detailed explanation about those agreements, the audiovisual sector and IP is available in other WIPO publications.
How to read this guide
This guide will help filmmakers to understand and incorporate rights clearance in their concepts, development planning and productions with special attention to IP rights.
This guide is divided into two section and annexes. The first section answers the main questions related to rights clearance and provides practical steps on how to implement best practices during audiovisual projects, including and especially in small projects with limited budget.
The second section gives more details about the clearance process according to the different type of rights and materials used in audiovisual projects.
The annexes provide practical examples and guidance for those working in audiovisual projects.