Rights clearance

Clearance covers music, film and television clips, photographs, artwork, fonts, game assets and footage shot by other people. It means working out who owns the material, asking the person who can actually grant it, and holding a written licence that states what you may use, where, for how long and in what context. Verbal permission from a friendly contact is worth very little when a claim lands two years later. Creators get caught out most often by material that feels free: a fan remix, a stock clip under a licence that excludes monetised video, a photograph pulled straight from an image search.