When Creators Become Partners: Legal and Brand Protection Strategies in the Modern Creator Economy

As creator partnerships grow in scope, longevity and financial impact, the legal frameworks governing them are adjusting to keep pace. In this Q&A, Libby O’Neill, deputy chair of the firm’s Advertising, Marketing & Promotions practice, and Bess Morgan, deputy chair of the firm’s Brand Protection practice, share their insider perspectives on what brands and creators need to understand about ownership, compliance and the new negotiation environment we’re entering as these relationships become more sophisticated, more scrutinized and increasingly more strategic.

In this Q&A discussion, the speakers are noted by their initials.

Tell us about your practices and the types of matters you generally handle.

LO: I counsel clients on all aspects of advertising, marketing and intellectual property, with emphasis on claim substantiation, promotions, collaborations in the creator economy and regulatory guidance. My practice includes advising on national advertising initiatives, campaign strategy, representing clients before the National Advertising Division, and overseeing trademark protection, enforcement and portfolio management.

BM: I help clients acquire, protect and monetize intellectual property, with a focus on brand development, trademark strategy and enforcement. I represent brands and talent in high-profile sponsorships, endorsements, co-branded collaborations and licensing deals, and advise on FTC compliance and innovative partnership structures in an increasingly complex marketing ecosystem.

Creator partnerships have evolved from relatively informal collaborations into significant marketing investments. What’s driving that shift, and how has it changed the way brands and creators need to think about negotiations and partnership outcomes?

LO: The biggest driver is a fundamental rebranding of what a creator actually is. Influencers have repositioned themselves as entrepreneurs building multifaceted business empires, and that shift has real implications for how deals get structured. The leverage that used to sit almost entirely on the brand side has migrated. The tension I find most interesting right now is that you’re no longer negotiating between a brand and a person. You’re negotiating between a brand and a brand. That changes the dynamic considerably, and the agreements need to reflect that.

As creators expand the scope of their work and their commercial footprint, brands have had to respond. The bigger the brand, the more its reputation is front and center in any collaboration, and that means enforcement and protection have to be built into the contract from the start. If you’re not doing that, you’re leaving value and exposure on the table.

The FTC and self-regulatory bodies such as BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division have grown much more sophisticated in how they look at influencer marketing—they’re focused on both the advertiser and the creator. That means brands can no longer push all compliance responsibility onto the creator nor can creators expect that they won’t be targets for enforcement. Having well-drafted contracts that spell out each party’s responsibilities can help get everyone aligned early and make it easier to navigate issues when they come up.

BM: Creator content is no longer disposable marketing—it is valuable brand IP. As brands increasingly seek to reuse, license and protect it long term, ownership, permissions and control of brand assets have become central to how agreements are structured.

A good example is when a high-profile creator is engaged to host a flagship event or serve as talent in an entertainment-adjacent role. When a creator’s star has risen to the level of A-list talent, agreements can begin to resemble a talent or appearance deal rather than a standard marketing services contract. In these situations, brands are typically focused on securing two things: broad ownership of the content and expansive usage rights. These are not short-term, one-year arrangements—brands making this level of investment expect to use the content well beyond the initial campaign window and to limit the creator’s ability to withdraw or restrict its use.

The more a brand is investing in a high-dollar, high-impact crossover, creator flexibility correspondingly narrows—particularly where the talent is integrated into a broader studio or enterprise marketing vehicle. As creators scale, they may also increasingly participate in multi-talent campaigns, adding layers of complexity as to campaign prominence, approval rights and allocation of usage rights among multiple brand-side stakeholders. These are sophisticated, highly negotiated arrangements, and creators and their teams must be prepared to navigate their structure.

As these collaborations become more strategic and long term, what are some of the key legal or operational safeguards brands should be thinking about when structuring creator partnerships?

BM: Foundational elements include ownership, usage rights, approvals and control. Brands should establish clear contractual terms defining who owns the content, how it can be used, the duration of those rights and the specific contexts in which the content may appear. Exclusivity is another critical consideration. In the creator economy, conversations surrounding exclusivity are inherently more complex than with traditional talent because creators often work across multiple brands and categories as a core part of their business model. As a result, brands are not simply negotiating competitive exclusivity, they are also navigating an entire ecosystem of existing and ongoing brand relationships that underpin a creator’s livelihood.

The treatment of intellectual property and brand assets must be explicit. When creators use logos, language or product claims, brands need clear guidelines on usage and final approval. Further, as partnerships evolve into longer-term or even joint venture-like arrangements, IP considerations become more complex. What does the creator contribute? What does the brand develop and fund? And if the relationship ends, what does each party retain? It is in the interest of both parties to address these issues proactively.

LO: Since these deals are often bigger than they used to be—and therefore likely to draw more scrutiny from regulators and the public alike—contracts and workflows simply have to do more from a compliance perspective. Disclosure requirements need to be specific and actionable, not general. Claim substantiation guardrails must be built in so creators know what they can and cannot say about a product before content goes live. And review processes should be mapped out with enough lead time built in to actually be functional.

One place where this may break down operationally is timing. Brands want the ability to require takedowns or corrections almost in real time when something goes wrong, but time is money for a creator, and going back and forth on disclosures or being required to take something down and reshoot it after the fact is a friction point that both sides need to plan for contractually. From the creator’s side, there is a reasonable push to ensure that if content gets regulatory scrutiny because of information the brand provided, the indemnification flows in the right direction. Those protections need to be explicit, and a simple agreement isn’t going to get this done anymore. These are sophisticated, heavily negotiated arrangements, and both sides need counsel who understands that.

How do you see negotiation strategies evolving as creator partnerships continue to mature?

LO: The agreements themselves are going to keep getting more sophisticated, and that’s appropriate given what’s at stake. We’ve been doing complex long-form negotiations between commercial parties for a long time, but what’s changed is that the creator economy has matured to the point where those same standards now apply here. Brands should expect to see more leverage on the creator side, more strategic negotiating tactics and a greater ability for established creators to extract favorable terms as the power structure continues to shift. The brands that will navigate this best are those that stop thinking about creator content as a single-use asset and start thinking about how they’re building and protecting IP that provides value over time.

BM: What distinguishes creators from traditional talent, such as musicians or actors, is that creators build their entire business and livelihood around brand partnerships. These are not side arrangements. For example, an A-list film star may have a handful of brand deals whereas a creator may manage a dozen active partnerships across categories. As a result, exclusivity, time, availability and audience attention require more careful negotiation, as they represent real business constraints for the creator.

The inflection point for brand protection comes when these relationships evolve into formal business structures—joint ventures, equity arrangements and long-term licensing deals. When a brand contributes capital and a creator brings their name, audience and IP, there must be a clear framework for valuing those contributions, governing the venture and determining what each party retains if the relationship ends. These are not simple conversations—and the legal infrastructure must match the ambition of the partnership.