Most brand collaborations in India are papered by an email and a brief. That is survivable while everyone is happy, and expensive when they are not. The part almost nobody has absorbed is that Indian consumer law does not treat a creator as the brand’s vendor. It treats the creator as an endorser, with liability of their own, a penalty of up to ten lakh rupees, a ban on endorsing anything for up to three years — and a statutory defence that only works if you kept the evidence. This page sets out what the law actually says, what a workable agreement contains, and what to push back on in a brief.
The starting point is a definition most creators have never read, and it is broader than they expect.
Section 2(18), Consumer Protection Act, 2019, in substance. “Endorsement”, in relation to an advertisement, means:
(i) any message, verbal statement, demonstration; or
(ii) depiction of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an
individual or the name or seal of any organisation or enterprise,
which makes the consumer to believe that it reflects the opinion, finding or experience of the person making such endorsement.
Look at what triggers it: the consumer believing that the message reflects your opinion or experience. That is the entire business model of creator marketing. A brand pays for a creator precisely because the audience treats the recommendation as personal, and the law attaches responsibility to the same feature that creates the value.
Two consequences follow immediately, and both are uncomfortable for the informal way most of these deals are done.
Section 21, in substance. Where the Central Consumer Protection Authority is satisfied after investigation that any advertisement is false or misleading and is prejudicial to the interest of any consumer or is in contravention of consumer rights, it may issue directions to the concerned trader, manufacturer, endorser, advertiser or publisher to discontinue such advertisement or to modify it in the manner and within the time specified.
The Authority may impose a penalty which may extend to ten lakh rupees on a manufacturer or an endorser, and for every subsequent contravention a penalty which may extend to fifty lakh rupees.
Where the Authority deems it necessary, it may by order prohibit the endorser of a false or misleading advertisement from making any endorsement in respect of any product or service for a period which may extend to one year, and for every subsequent contravention, for a period which may extend to three years.
The prohibition is the part creators should think about hardest. A monetary penalty is a bad quarter. A prohibition on making any endorsement for one year removes the entire income of a full-time creator, and for three years it removes the career.
It also explains why brand-side indemnities are not the protection creators assume. An indemnity is a promise to reimburse loss. It does not reimburse a prohibition, and it is worth precisely as much as the counterparty is good for.
What an indemnity does and does not do. A brand indemnity is worth having and you should ask for one — it shifts money. It does not shift regulatory liability, it does not lift a ban on endorsing, and it is only as strong as the company behind it. A creator who has an indemnity and no substantiation has the weaker half of the protection.
Section 21(5), in substance. No endorser shall be liable to a penalty under this section if he has exercised due diligence to verify the veracity of the claims made in the advertisement regarding the product or service being endorsed by him.
This is the whole game, and it is why a properly drafted agreement is worth more to a creator than to a brand. Due diligence is a standard of conduct that has to be demonstrated after the fact, and conduct that was not recorded is very hard to demonstrate.
What does it look like in practice? Not a legal opinion on every post. Something proportionate, and consistent:
None of this is onerous for an established creator working with a serious brand. Serious brands already hold the substantiation, because their own advertising depends on it. The friction usually comes from small brands who have never been asked, and that friction is itself information.
Here is the clause we consider non-negotiable in a creator-side agreement, in plain terms.
The fourth item is the one brands push back on, and it is the one worth holding. Without a right to decline an unsubstantiated claim, the creator is contractually obliged to say something the law may penalise them for saying. That is not a risk allocation; it is a trap.
The guidance issued under the consumer law on endorsements is short and sensible, and the operative idea is that a disclosure has to be one a normal viewer cannot fail to notice. What that means in practice, format by format:
| Format | What works | What does not |
|---|---|---|
| Image post with caption | A plain term at the start of the caption, above the fold | At the end, after twelve hashtags, behind “more” |
| Short video | Superimposed text on screen, long enough to read, plus the platform tag | Only in the description; a one-second flash |
| Long video | Stated at the start and repeated where the segment begins | Once, at the end of a fifteen-minute video |
| Live stream | Visible throughout the promotional portion | Said once at the beginning |
| Audio | Spoken clearly, at the start of the segment | Read quickly at the end |
| Story or ephemeral post | On every frame that promotes | On the first frame only |
| Language | The same language as the post | An English tag on a Hindi post |
| Wording | Advertisement, ad, sponsored, collaboration, paid promotion, employee, free gift | Ambassador, thanks, collab (abbreviated), “sp”, or nothing |
Two practical points that agreements should settle rather than leave to a negotiation on the day.
First, the platform tool is not a substitute for the disclosure. A paid-partnership label is useful and you should use it, but it is placed and rendered by the platform and it can be easy to miss. Use it and disclose in the content.
Second, no clause should permit the disclosure to be softened. Brands occasionally ask for the tag to be moved to the end, or for a vaguer word. Put a line in the agreement recording that the creator will comply with applicable disclosure requirements and that no instruction to the contrary will be given or followed. It protects both sides, and it ends the conversation early.
The trigger for disclosure is a material connection between the creator and the brand — a connection that might affect how the audience weighs the recommendation. Money is the obvious one and the least common source of disputes. The ones that cause trouble are the others.
The simplest test, and the one we give clients: would a reasonable follower feel differently about the recommendation if they knew? If the honest answer is yes, disclose. The cost of disclosing when you did not have to is nothing. The cost of the reverse is the penalty regime above.
Most collaboration disputes are not about law. They are about somebody having written “3 posts” and the two sides meaning different things by it.
A deliverables schedule should be capable of being read by a stranger who can then say whether it has been performed. That means:
That last one deserves emphasis because briefs increasingly ask for it. Guaranteed impressions or a minimum engagement rate is a promise about a platform’s behaviour that no creator controls. If a brand needs guaranteed delivery, that is paid media, with a media buy and its own contract — not an organic collaboration.
The principle is the same one that governs all commissioned creative work in India, and it surprises brands every time.
Copyright Act, 1957, Section 17, in substance. Subject to the provisions of the Act, the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein. The exception for work made in the course of employment applies to a contract of service — that is, employment — and not to a contract for services.
Section 19(1). No assignment of the copyright in any work shall be valid unless it is in writing signed by the assignor or by his duly authorised agent.
A creator is not the brand’s employee. Paying for the work does not transfer the copyright in it. Absent a written, signed assignment, the creator owns the photograph, the video, the edit, the voice-over and the script they wrote, and the brand has whatever licence the arrangement implies — which is usually far narrower than the brand assumes.
We deal with the full mechanics of assignment — the five-year default where no term is stated, the India-only default where no territory is stated, and the lapse where the right is not exercised — in our freelance agreement guide. Rather than repeat it here, the point to carry across is this: every default in the Copyright Act runs in the creator’s favour, and a brand that wants more has to negotiate and pay for it.
Brands often ask for an assignment when what they need is a licence. The difference is worth money to both sides, and it is worth being clear about.
| Licence | Assignment | |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Stays with the creator | Moves to the brand |
| What the brand gets | Permission on stated terms | The copyright itself |
| Reuse in future campaigns | Only if the licence says so | At will |
| Creator’s own portfolio use | Retained, ordinarily | Needs a reserved right, or it is lost |
| Typical price | Part of the campaign fee | A materially higher fee |
| What we normally recommend | A defined licence for most collaborations | Only where the brand genuinely needs ownership, and pays for it |
Whichever it is, five variables have to be fixed or the clause means nothing: purpose (the campaign, or all marketing), platforms (the creator’s channels, the brand’s channels, paid media, packaging, retail displays, television), territory, duration, and whether it is exclusive.
“Perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, in all media now known or hereafter devised” is boilerplate that arrives in a great many briefs. It is an assignment by another name. A creator signing it for a single campaign fee is selling an asset at the price of a rental, and the correct response is not outrage but a counter-proposal: a defined licence for the campaign, with a priced option to extend.
If the brand wants ongoing use of a body of work rather than a one-off campaign, the cleaner structure is a separate content licensing agreement with its own term and fee.
This is the single most commonly un-priced right in Indian influencer deals.
Whitelisting, sometimes called allowlisting or creator licensing, is where the brand runs your content as a paid advertisement — often from your handle, so that it retains the credibility of a creator post while being targeted and amplified with the brand’s money. Boosting is the simpler version: the brand puts spend behind the existing post.
It is a different use from an organic post in every respect that matters: a much larger audience, chosen by the brand rather than earned by you, for a period the brand controls, often long after the campaign has ended. Treating it as included in an organic post fee is a mispricing rather than a generosity.
The last item catches people out. Content that was correctly disclosed as an organic collaboration does not stop needing disclosure when it becomes a paid advertisement — and if the brand’s ad team crops the creative, the on-screen disclosure can disappear. Put the obligation in the contract.
Copyright covers the content. It does not cover you.
Your name, image, likeness and voice are personal attributes, and their commercial use is something you permit for a purpose and a period. This is separate from the content licence and it should be a separate clause, because the two can end at different times and frequently should.
Three points to settle:
Where a brand wants to build a campaign around a creator’s persona over time, that is an ambassadorship rather than a collaboration, and it should be papered as one — with a term, a retainer, exclusivity that is paid for, and an agreed exit. Our artist and performer agreement service covers that structure.
Copyright Act, Section 57, in substance. Independently of the author’s copyright, and even after the assignment of that copyright, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to restrain or claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation, modification or other act in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation.
Moral rights are independent of ownership and survive an assignment. For a creator that matters, because the risk in this industry is rarely that a brand steals your video. It is that a brand re-cuts it, drops the qualifier, adds a claim you never made, and runs it as an advertisement with your face on it.
Two protections, and you want both. The statutory one under Section 57, and a contractual one: the brand may not make material edits without your approval, may not add claims not in the approved script, and may not combine your content with other material in a way that changes its meaning.
The contractual protection matters more in practice, because it operates before the damage, not after.
Brands ask for category exclusivity, and for a limited period that is a reasonable commercial request. The problem is scope and duration.
Indian Contract Act, 1872, Section 27. Every agreement by which any one is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind, is to that extent void.
Indian law on restraint of trade is stricter than the position in several other countries, and a creator’s livelihood is their profession. During the engagement, a negative covenant is ordinarily unobjectionable. After it ends, a broad restriction is on difficult ground — and we set out the case law on that in the NDA guide rather than repeating it here.
What makes an exclusivity clause workable:
A creator’s leverage is at its highest before the content is posted and drops to nearly nothing afterwards. Payment terms should be written with that in mind.
Where you are registered as a micro or small enterprise, the statutory payment regime under the MSMED Act is available and it is substantially stronger than anything a contract gives you. We set out the mechanism — the payment period that overrides the contract, the compound interest, and the facilitation council route — in the freelance agreement guide. Many full-time creators are eligible and have never registered.
A large share of collaborations in India involve no cash at all. A product arrives, sometimes with a request to post and sometimes without one. Creators treat these as informal, and that informality is where most of the avoidable trouble sits.
Three things are worth understanding about a barter deal.
It is still a contract. Consideration under the Indian Contract Act does not have to be money — it is something done or promised at the promisor’s desire, and a product supplied in exchange for a post is consideration on both sides. So a barter collaboration creates obligations that are enforceable in both directions. A brand that supplies a product on an agreed understanding can sue for non-performance, and a creator who performs can sue for what was promised. “It was only a gifting” is not a defence to either.
It attracts exactly the same disclosure and endorsement obligations. The consumer law does not distinguish between a paid post and a gifted one. The material connection exists, the creator is an endorser, and the penalty regime in Section 21 applies in full. A creator who took no money and made an unsubstantiated claim is in the same position as one who was paid lakhs, with the additional disadvantage of having no fee to have covered the risk.
It has a value, and that value has consequences. A barter is an exchange of consideration, and the tax and indirect-tax treatment of barter transactions is not the same as the treatment of a gift with nothing asked in return. Where you regularly receive products against an obligation to post, the position is worth checking with your accountant rather than assumed. The practical marker is simple: if something was expected in return, it was not a gift.
The clause creators most often lose in a barter is amplification. A brand that has given away a product worth a few thousand rupees ends up with a creator asset it runs as paid advertising for months. Say in the email that amplification is not included, and the point is settled before it arises.
Four situations should be written down before they happen.
The brand wants the post taken down. Agree a minimum live period first — the fee was paid for a post that stays up. Then define the take-down right: for a product recall, a factual error, a regulatory direction or a legal notice, promptly and at the brand’s cost. Not at will.
The creator wants to take it down. This should exist too, for narrow reasons: the brand has breached, the claims turn out to be false, or the association becomes reputationally untenable. A creator with no exit is tied to a brand’s conduct indefinitely.
The campaign is cancelled midway. A kill fee, scaled to the stage reached. Content shot but not posted is work done.
Something goes publicly wrong. A morality or reputation clause usually appears in brand-side drafts and usually runs one way. It is reasonable for it to be mutual: if the brand becomes the subject of a serious regulatory or criminal proceeding, the creator should be able to walk away and stop the association too.
Some briefs carry a regulatory layer well beyond the general consumer law, and a stronger disclaimer does not address it. If a collaboration touches any of these, take specific advice before accepting rather than after posting.
Creators imagine regulatory trouble as a sudden catastrophe. In practice it arrives as a letter, and what happens next depends almost entirely on what is in your campaign file.
There are three routes a complaint can take, and they are independent of each other.
What is asked for, in every one of those routes, is the same set of documents: the brief, the approvals, the substantiation for each claim, the content as published, and the disclosure as it actually appeared. A creator who can produce all five is in a wholly different position from one who can produce screenshots and a memory of a phone call.
The single most useful habit. Keep a folder per campaign, and put five things in it before you post: the brief, the written substantiation, the final approved script or caption, the published post with its disclosure visible, and the invoice or the record of what you received. It takes two minutes per campaign and it is the difference between a due diligence defence you can evidence and one you can only assert.
If a notice does arrive, three things help and one hurts. Respond within the time given, respond with the documents rather than with argument, and tell the brand immediately so that its substantiation and your response are consistent. What hurts is deleting the post quietly and hoping the matter goes away — it is preserved elsewhere, and removal after a notice reads badly.
Indian creators increasingly work directly with brands that have no Indian entity, and the contracts that arrive are drafted for a different legal system.
Four things to look at before signing one.
The template a foreign brand sends will usually contain an all-rights assignment, a broad exclusivity, a performance guarantee and an indemnity running one way. None of those is unusual in its home market. All of them are negotiable, and a short, clear counter-proposal is generally accepted by brands that intend to work in India seriously.
Most collaborations of any size run through an agency, and creators sign without noticing what that changes.
The cleanest structures are either a direct agreement with the brand, or an agency agreement with a payment obligation that is not conditional on the agency being paid.
Everything above is written from the creator’s side because that is where the regulatory exposure is least understood. The brand side has its own list, and it is shorter.
| What we see | Why it is a problem | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| No written agreement at all | No substantiation, no scope, no payment terms, no due diligence trail | A short agreement beats a long email chain |
| Relying on the brand’s indemnity | It shifts money, not regulatory liability or a ban | Indemnity and substantiation |
| Claims accepted from a brief without evidence | Section 21(5) defence has nothing to rest on | Written substantiation before posting, kept on file |
| Disclosure in hashtags at the end | Not “hard to miss” | Plain word, up front, on screen in video |
| Gifted product posted without disclosure | Material connection is not only cash | Disclose gifting |
| “Perpetual worldwide all media” accepted | An assignment priced as a rental | Defined licence, priced option to extend |
| Whitelisting not priced | A different and much larger use | Separate fee, defined window, access revoked at the end |
| Guaranteed views promised | A promise about the platform, not about your work | Commit to deliverables, not to reach |
| Unlimited revisions | The campaign never ends and the fee never changes | Fixed rounds, feedback window, deemed approval |
| Payment on “final approval” | The other side controls your clock | Deposit plus balance on posting |
| No minimum live period | The post can come down the next day | State it, and tie the take-down right to defined reasons |
| Post-term exclusivity across a whole industry | Section 27 | Narrow category, short period, separately paid |
Drafting starts at ₹3,999 and ordinarily takes 1 – 3 days. We draft from one side — creator or brand — and we say which side we are on, because a document written to be fair to everybody protects nobody in particular.
| What is included | Why |
|---|---|
| Deliverables schedule | Format, count, window, minimum live period, revision rounds |
| Usage rights clause | Licence or assignment, with all five variables fixed |
| Amplification and whitelisting | Separately defined and separately priced |
| Image, name and voice rights | Period and channels, ending separately from the content licence |
| Substantiation and warranties | The Section 21(5) due diligence trail |
| Disclosure clause | The standard, and that it will not be softened |
| Payment terms | Deposit, balance on posting, interest, and a remedy |
| Exclusivity, where wanted | Narrow, time-bound and priced |
| Exit | Take-down rights, kill fee, mutual reputation clause |
| Review of a brief or contract sent to you | What to push back on, in writing |
Nothing is payable in advance — placing the order is free. Where the work is a longer ambassadorship, a licensing deal over a catalogue of content, an event, or a shoot with a production crew, tell us at the start: the right document is a different one, and our performer agreement, content licensing, event management and photography and videography services cover those.
If a brand will not answer the first two, that is not a negotiating position. It is the answer.
The one document that protects a creator is the brand’s own substantiation, obtained before anything is posted and kept on file. Send us the brief and the contract you have been given — we will tell you which claims need evidence, which rights are being taken without being paid for, and exactly what to ask for back.
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