If you’re acting as an agent or manager for talent such as content creators, TikTokers, celebrities, influencers, authors, sports professionals (the list goes on!), it is crucial to have a talent management agreement in place to outline the relationship between you and your talent roster and the duties and responsibilities required of each party.
Why is a talent management agreement important?
To ensure that both the talent and the agency knows where it stands when it comes to its relationship, the services, commission and payment (and any increase for specific projects), but also in the event that the relationship breaks down, you have a clear mechanism for dealing with such breakdown.
Just because you are an “agent” or a “manager” does not mean that you have the necessary legal contractual authority to bind your talent roster. You need to be granted express authority by the talent in order to contractually bind talent. This is oversight can be costly for an agency if the talent decides not to perform a contract the agency has signed up to on behalf of the talent.
What are the key inclusions for talent management agreements?
It is important to clearly set out the roles and responsibilities of the agency and the talent – but in particular the following should be considered as a priority when it comes to a talent management agreement:
- Authority to contractually bind – without this you cannot require talent to comply with any deals you enter for and on their behalf.
- Exclusivity – do you want to be the talent’s only agent or the only agent in a particular territory or industry? Then this will need to be correctly expressed in the agreement in order to be effective.
- Commission – what is the split and how is it deducted from the talent fee? Is there any increase for projects?
- Commercial Deals – what are they? How are they defined?
- Exclusions – are there any exclusions required – the talent might already have an existing ambassadorship with a brand, a PR agency or a publisher and may need to exclude such services or deals from the talent management agreement.
- Termination – what is the notice period for ending the relationship? If no notice period is specified, a reasonable time period may be implied at law. What happens if you want to end the relationship with the talent due to diminished reputation?
- Consequences of termination – what happens to commission for commercial deals secured that continue, renew or are extended past termination? Can the talent poach one its talent manager and set up a new business?
- Intellectual property rights – how do you provide onward services to your brand deal or commercial deal clients? Do you need to be able to use images, videos, text or content to provide onward services or to promote your agency as the talent’s representative? Without authority to use content you could be at risk of copyright infringement.
- Limitation of liability – what happens if a deal falls through or there is a dry up in deals for a particular talent? Have you limited your liability for loss of income or opportunity? Without a limitation of liability clause, your liability is unlimited.
- Indemnity – what happens if the talent causes you to breach a contract due to their acts or non-performance? Do you have the right route of financial recovery?
As you can see, there is a lot to think about and cover when it comes to talent management agreements. It is important that your legal advisor understands the industry and the challenges in order to best advise you.
At Stephens Scown, we have specialist influencer and talent management legal advisors who can assist you in ensuring your talent management agreements are comprehensive and protect your business with commercial longevity in mind.
Amy Ralston is an Associate at Stephens Scown who specialises in influencer marketing law.
If you are seeking advice or have any questions in relation to management agreement, please feel free to contact our Intellectual Property, Data Protection and Technology team and we would be happy to help.