You did it! You auditioned for a gig and got cast! Time to sign whatever they send over and get to work, right?
Wrong.
Do not sign just any piece of paper that crosses your desk based on the lovely words of your soon-to-be employers. Even if they are reputable. Even if they are someone you personally know. Even if you’ve worked with them before.
In the interest of keeping you all safe, we’re going to keep this simple and clearly lay out some terminology. So strap in, because we’re gonna un-legalese this whole thing with as little use of Latin as possible.
Note: the following does not constitute legal advice on behalf of Such A Voice nor this article’s author, and is meant for information purposes only.
- For Your Consideration
Before we get started, there is one thing you must always remember: every contract is different. Do not trust a boilerplate. Read the contract every time. Do not be afraid to send back questions, corrections, or additional riders.
First off, we’re assuming that the Parties involved have the capacity to sign a contract and are operating towards both sides agreeing and walking away happy (known as mutual assent). Like, who would want to write a contract meant to misuse your work and abuse the rights you’ve given them?
The key thing that’s different in each contract is something called the Consideration. In short, it’s the expressed, mutual exchange of obligations between Parties—you do the work, they give the monies. But, as you’ve likely seen, the rates, terms, and asks for each field in voice-over are different. Fortunately, there are several places that keep track of the standard minimums, which is important to ensure all actors get paid fairly and can continue to live without undermining one another or the industry as a whole.
- Clause and Effect
Each contract has clauses defining aspects of its obligations. Key words you’ll need to know are:
License: what a Party can do with your work once you’ve given it to them, such as ownership of the recording, narrowing it to the specific project, or allowing it to be used in a variety of other places (like advertisements and promotional media for the project).
Term: an aspect of the License, including the number of months the Party is allowed to use a work, the locations and markets it will be used in, aspects of any renewals of the usage, and any and all platforms in which it will be used.
Rate: the agreement on compensation based on services rendered, such as: per finished minute, per hour, per session, per episode, or flat. This may or may not include revisions.
In Perpetuity: this gives a Party eternal, exclusive rights to a work, often without additional compensation. The reddest of flags.
Buyout: a large payment for services rendered to obtain full rights and usage of a work. Usually given by Employers to appear as a lucrative offer to the Performer in the hopes of a bigger return for the Employer.
Non-Disclosure Agreement: a clause in a contract stopping Parties from discussing the work being performed or any status of the project as a whole, as well as a process by which Parties must be notified of any disclosures. If present, don’t tell anybody. Seriously, don’t say anything as you could be liable for hefty fees for breaking this.
Alternative Dispute Resolution: a clause dictating how disagreements between Parties are handled and arbitrated to avoid going to court or bearing the brunt of full legal costs.
Jurisdiction: the state or country in which the contract is enforced, determining under whose governance the enforceability falls and where legal disputes must be settled.
Severability: a section of a contract stating what happens in the event any clause in the contract is deemed unlawful or illegal, ranging from the single section being removed and work continuing to full dissolution of the contract.
Rider: an additional document to be signed by all Parties that adds more terms surrounding the obligations, usually focused on an unstated aspect or clause in need of further clarification.
- Modern Times, Modern Solutions
We certainly picked an era to live in. Currently, the threat of AI is ever-present in our work, and Employers are looking for ways to cut us out of this industry to save them a buck.
If you’ve been under a rock, the latest Interactive strike revealed just how Employers wanted to use our work beyond the basic scope of projects, including training machines based on work you do for them or feeding your voice to an algorithm to further replicate and amalgamate your likeness.
You need to be on the lookout for terms like: Secondary Performance, Digital Replica, Digital Double, Real-Time Generation, and Independently-Created Digital Replica. These can indicate they want to do more than the current work being contracted. Do not sign over your rights for these purposes in any fashion—no buyout will be enough if it means risking the future of your career. Once you give your likeness to them for a single lump sum, it’s curtains.
Be wary of conditions that grant third parties any rights, as this can be a way for Employers to skirt around their obligations in the Consideration. If you don’t have the benefit of union representation, there are still options available to you. The National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) now offers several contract reviews per year to members.
- The Checklist
That’s great and all, but how is the above used in practice, if you can’t afford a legal team? I gotchu. While this won’t substitute proper legal counsel, this is a solid start for solo endeavors. Follow these each time you pore through a contract.
- Make sure all usage of terms and proper nouns are consistent and capitalized. Anywhere it says, “herein referred to as X”, note and check that word throughout the whole contract.
- Understand what they intend to do with the work, as in the terms of the License, and any transformative derivatives they want to create.
- Make sure the exact locations, markets, and platforms are listed out and not written as “any”.
- Make sure the run time for the work is clearly listed and not written as “in perpetuity” or “unlimited”.
- Check to see if the rate is standard to the industry. In non-union spaces, this might be more difficult (based on each state), but you can still push back or say no.
- Ensure there is a clause for penalties for failure to be paid in a timely fashion. This might require sending a revision back to them.
- Check the terms of the non-disclosure agreement, if present.
- Search for and flag the following words:
- “replica”
- “artificial intelligence / AI”
- “secondary”
- “generate / generative”
- “Identifiable”
- Note the Jurisdiction and Dispute Resolution sections of the contract.
- Note if there is a clause permitting the Employer to have beneficiaries.
- Note the terms of the Severability clause.
This may feel overwhelming, but the peace of mind you get from an airtight contract is worth the effort. Stay vigilant, get help if you need it, and keep on working safely.
P.S. If you haven’t yet taken our introductory voice-over class, where we go over everything one needs to know about getting started in the voice-over industry, sign up here!
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