Creator agreement

This is what a creator signs before we commission anything. It is on the site so you can read it now rather than at the point of signing, and so you can take it to somebody else first.

Who this is between

Four Cents Media, a division of Four Cents, at 49 Thorncliffe Park Dr, East York, ON M4H 1J6, Canada (called we or us), and the creator named in the offer (called you). Each commissioned piece of work is a separate engagement under these terms, created by an offer we send and you accept in writing.

You are not our employee

You are an independent contractor. You control how and when you work, you use your own equipment, and you are free to work for anyone else at any time. Nothing here creates employment, partnership or agency. You are responsible for your own taxes, and we will issue a T4A where the law requires one. If you are registered for GST or HST, charge it on your invoice and give us your registration number, because we cannot claim the credit without it.

The offer is the whole job

Every offer states the fee, the deliverables, the deadline, how many rounds of revision are included, and where the content may be used. If it is not in the offer, it is not part of the job. We do not ask for extra deliverables afterwards at the same price, and you do not have to agree to any change that is not agreed in writing.

What you are paid, and when

The fee in the offer is the fee. We pay within seven days of approving the delivered work, not on the brand paying us, and not on a schedule tied to anyone else. If we reject work we must say why in writing and give you the revisions in the offer to put it right. If we cancel after you have started, you keep a kill fee of 50% of the offer, and 100% if the work was already delivered.

Copyright

On full payment you assign to us the copyright in the commissioned work, worldwide and for the full term of copyright. This assignment is in writing and signed because the Copyright Act requires it to be. Until we pay you in full, you keep the copyright and we have no right to use the work.

You keep everything you made that we did not commission. This assignment covers the commissioned deliverables only, not your account, your back catalogue, your style or your face.

Moral rights

You waive your moral rights in the commissioned work in favour of us and anyone we authorise. Moral rights cannot be assigned in Canada, so a waiver is the only instrument that works, and an assignment of copyright on its own does not waive them. In plain terms this means we may edit, recut, subtitle, crop and shorten the work without that being treated as a breach of your integrity right. We will not use the work to endorse something you told us in writing you object to.

Performance

If you appear or perform in the work, you assign your performer's rights in that performance to us for the same purposes as the copyright above, and you consent to your image, voice and name being used in connection with the work in those same uses. This is scoped to those uses on purpose. A performance recorded for one organic post is not automatically cleared for a paid advertisement, and we have to ask for that separately if it was not in the offer.

How long the rights last

Grants of usage to a brand are commonly described in this industry as perpetual. We describe them the same way because it is the market norm and it is commercially accurate. It is worth you knowing, because almost nobody in this industry says it, that Canadian copyright reverts to an author's estate twenty five years after death regardless of what any agreement says. That is a known limit on the word perpetual across the whole market, not something particular to us.

What you promise us

• The work is yours, you made it, and it does not copy anyone else's work.
• You have permission from anybody recognisable who appears in it, including children in your care, and you can show us that permission if asked.
• You have not used music, footage, fonts or effects you do not have the right to hand on. This is the one that catches people. The music licence built into a platform covers you posting to your own account. It does not cover a brand running that video as an advertisement. Use only audio we supply or music you can prove you licensed.
• What you say about a product is honest and reflects what you actually experienced.
• You will disclose the commercial relationship on any post to your own audience, clearly and in the post itself, in the way the platform and Canadian law require.

Claims about a product have to be approved

If the work contains a statement about what a product does, we have to hold written approval of that specific claim before it is published, and so does the brand. This is not a formality. Under the Competition Act an unapproved testimonial is reviewable conduct, and since June 2025 a private applicant can take it to the Competition Tribunal directly. A general assignment of rights is not approval of a specific claim, and a recut that changes the claim needs approval again.

Exclusivity

None, unless an offer says so and pays for it separately. We do not ask creators to turn down other work for free.

Confidentiality

Briefs, unreleased products and anything marked confidential stay confidential until the work is public. You may show the finished work in your portfolio once it has been published, unless the offer says otherwise and pays for that restriction.

If something goes wrong

If a claim is brought against us because you did not have the rights you promised, or because you used music or footage you were not entitled to, you cover us for what that costs. Your liability to us is capped at the greater of the fee for that engagement and one thousand dollars, except for claims arising from your own dishonesty. We accept that this cap matters more to you than to us, which is exactly why it is here.

Ending it

Either of us can stop working together at any time with notice in writing. Payment for work already delivered or already started still applies. Rights already granted and paid for survive.

Law

Ontario law, and the courts of Ontario. If any part of this is unenforceable, the rest still stands.

This document is published so both sides can read it before anything is agreed. It is a working draft pending review by a qualified lawyer, and nothing on this page is legal advice. Where a signed agreement differs from this page, the signed agreement governs.

Version 1.0, 2026-10-21.