Your customer filmed it, you paid for the campaign, and you own none of it. Three separate bodies of law govern a customer video, each needs its own document.
You commissioned it, you paid for the campaign around it, and you own none of it. Copyright in a customer’s video belongs to the customer. Their face in it is governed by a second body of law entirely. The numbers they mention on camera are governed by a third. Three rights, three documents, and a brand that has collected none of them is exposed on all three fronts at once.
None of this is exotic. Each rule is one or two sentences of published text, and together they explain why the release form a good agency hands you is longer than you expected.
Right one: who owns the recording
The default rule is one sentence: “Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work.”
The customer who filmed it is the author. Asking for it does not change that. Paying for the campaign does not change that. Publishing it does not change that. And the only way to move the right is also one sentence:
“A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.”
Three consequences worth stating plainly. An oral agreement transfers nothing. An enthusiastic email transfers nothing unless it is signed. And the signature required is the creator’s, not yours: your countersignature on your own template is not the operative one.
There is a route people reach for instead, and it is narrower than its reputation. A work made for hire is either “a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment”, or a work “specially ordered or commissioned” for one of nine enumerated uses, “if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.”
So a work-for-hire clause buried in terms of service accepted by a checkbox fails twice: no signed instrument, and probably no qualifying category. A standalone customer video is not obviously “a contribution to a collective work” or “a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work” unless it genuinely is contributed to a larger work. The reliable instrument is an assignment or an express written licence, signed by the person who made the file.
The signature that matters is the creator's. Yours on your own template is not the operative one. Source : 17 U.S.C. 201(a), 204(a) and 101 (2026)
Right two: the person in the frame
There is no general federal right of publicity. This is state law, and two states set the floor for anyone publishing nationally.
California. The statute reaches “any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling… without that person’s prior consent”. The remedy is layered, and the layers matter more than the headline:
“the person who violated the section shall be liable to the injured party or parties in an amount equal to the greater of seven hundred fifty dollars ($750) or the actual damages suffered by them… and any profits from the unauthorized use that are attributable to the use… In establishing these profits, the injured party or parties are required to present proof only of the gross revenue attributable to the unauthorized use, and the person who violated this section is required to prove their deductible expenses. Punitive damages may also be awarded… The prevailing party in any action under this section shall also be entitled to attorney’s fees and costs.”
The $750 floor is not the risk. The burden shift on profits is, and so is the fee-shifting clause, which is what makes a small claim economically worth bringing against a mid-sized company.
The statute also defines the threshold precisely: a person is readily identifiable “when one who views the photograph with the naked eye can reasonably determine that the person depicted… is the same person who is complaining of its unauthorized use”. Someone genuinely lost in a crowd at an event is outside it; someone framed and lit is not.
New York. Shorter, and harsher in two specific respects. The whole prohibition is one sentence:
“A person, firm or corporation that uses for advertising purposes, or for the purposes of trade, the name, portrait, picture, likeness, or voice of any living person without having first obtained the written consent of such person, or if a minor of such minor’s parent or guardian, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Written consent, obtained first, and a criminal offense rather than a civil one. The civil action alongside it allows an injunction, damages, and, where the use was knowing, exemplary damages at the jury’s discretion. Because the statute reaches uses “within this state”, a national campaign triggers it.
The practical translation of both statutes is the same: a signed release from the person on camera, obtained before publication, separate from the copyright document. They protect different things and are frequently held by different people. The employee who films a testimonial for their employer holds the right of publicity in their own face while the employer may hold the copyright in the footage.
This is the one that surprises marketing teams, because it converts a sincere sentence spoken by a real customer into a claim you must be able to prove.
“An advertisement employing endorsements by one or more consumers about the performance of an advertised product will be interpreted as representing that the product is effective for the purpose depicted in the advertisement. Therefore, the advertiser must possess and rely upon adequate substantiation… to support express and implied claims made through endorsements in the same manner the advertiser would be required to do if it had made the representation directly, i.e., without using endorsements. Consumer endorsements themselves are not competent and reliable scientific evidence.”
Then the rule that governs every number a customer says on camera:
“An advertisement containing an endorsement relating the experience of one or more consumers on a central or key attribute of the product will likely be interpreted as representing that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve… If the advertiser does not have substantiation that the endorser’s experience is representative…, the advertisement should clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected performance in the depicted circumstances, and the advertiser must possess and rely on adequate substantiation for that representation.”
Two more provisions that catch ordinary production decisions. If the ad presents people as actual consumers, it “should utilize actual consumers in both the audio and video, or clearly and conspicuously disclose that the persons in such advertisements are not actual consumers”. And on review programs: advertisers “should not take actions that have the effect of distorting or otherwise misrepresenting what consumers think of their products”, which covers procuring, suppressing, boosting, organizing, upvoting, downvoting, reporting or editing reviews.
One clarification about status. These are guides, not a freestanding rule: they “represent administrative interpretations of laws enforced by the Federal Trade Commission”, and departing from them is not itself unlawful. What is unlawful is the deceptive practice the guides describe, and “practices inconsistent with these Guides may result in corrective action by the Commission under section 5”.
This is not a matter of opinion. The regulator tested the phrase, and published what happened.
“the Commission tested the communication of advertisements containing testimonials that clearly and prominently disclosed either ‘Results not typical’ or the stronger ‘These testimonials are based on the experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results.’ Neither disclosure adequately reduced the communication that the experiences depicted are generally representative. Based upon this research, the Commission believes that similar disclaimers… are unlikely to be effective.”
The worked example is a heat pump company running three testimonials with monthly savings of $100, $125 and $150. Fewer than 20% of buyers save $100 or more. The conclusion:
“A disclosure such as, ‘Results not typical’ or ‘These testimonials are based on the experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results’ is insufficient to prevent this ad from being deceptive because consumers will still interpret the ad as conveying that the specified savings are representative of what consumers can generally expect.”
What works instead is stated just as concretely: disclose the generally expected result, and hold evidence for it. “There are multiple ways that such a disclosure could be phrased, e.g., ‘the average homeowner saves $35 per month,’ ‘the typical family saves $50 per month during cold months and $20 per month in warm months,’ or ‘most families save 10% on their utility bills.’”
With one more limit: even a proper disclosure can mislead “if they only apply to limited circumstances that are not described in the advertisement”. Quoting an average that only holds in one region, in an ad with no regional framing, puts you back where you started.
For a B2B company this is the operative constraint on case-study marketing. A customer saying “we cut response time by 60%” is a claim that your customers generally cut response time by around 60%. If you cannot substantiate that, the fix is not a footnote. It is either publishing what the typical result is, or not putting the number in the ad.
A customer video that is safe to run needs three separate things, and collecting two of them is not a partial pass.
A signed assignment or licence of copyright, from whoever operated the camera. Written, signed by them, describing the material and the uses you intend. If several people contributed footage, several signatures.
A signed release from every identifiable person on screen, obtained before publication. Written, because one of the two states that matter requires it in writing and makes the alternative a criminal offense. Note that this is a different document from the first one and often a different signatory.
Substantiation for every claim the content makes, held by you, at the same standard as if you had made the claim in your own voice. If a number appears, you need to know the typical result and be prepared to publish it. If you present people as customers, they must be customers, in both the audio and the video.
Two habits make this cheap rather than painful. Collect the paperwork at the moment the customer is enthusiastic, not at the moment legal review blocks the launch. And decide early whether the content is going to carry numbers, because a testimonial with a specific result and a testimonial about the experience of working with you are governed by very different amounts of the guide. The stakes rise when the footage is destined for paid distribution rather than your own channels, and our page on B2B paid acquisition sets out how customer material is put to work as ad creative once the three documents are in hand.
Frequently asked questions
If a customer sends us a video, can we run it as an ad?
Not safely. Copyright vests in whoever filmed it, and a transfer is invalid unless it is in writing and signed by that person. Sending you the file is not a signature.
Does a 'work for hire' clause in our terms solve it?
Almost never. Work made for hire requires both an express written agreement signed by both parties and that the work fall into one of nine listed categories. A checkbox on terms of service satisfies neither. Use an assignment or a written licence instead.
Do we need a separate release for the person on camera?
Yes. Copyright covers the recording; the right of publicity covers the person. They are different rights, often held by different people, and New York requires the consent to be in writing before use.
Can we use 'results not typical' under a customer's numbers?
No. The FTC tested that exact phrase and a stronger version of it, found neither worked, and states that such disclaimers are unlikely to be effective. You have to disclose the generally expected result and substantiate that.
What if we do not know the typical result?
Then you cannot run a testimonial that states one. The advertiser must hold substantiation for what the endorsement implies, in the same way as if it had made the claim itself.