Commissioning Agreement Template for England and Wales

A Commissioning Agreement records that one party is paying another to create a work, and settles who owns the result. Under England and Wales law the creator owns copyright by default, and an assignment must be in writing and signed, so the agreement is what actually transfers what the commissioner is paying for.

When do you need this document?

You need a Commissioning Agreement whenever you are paying for something to be created rather than buying something that already exists: commissioning a film, programme or podcast, engaging a composer, photographer or illustrator, briefing a design or branding project, or commissioning written content and research. It is equally important for the creator, who needs the scope, revisions and payment stages fixed.

What does it cover?

The agreement sets the brief and specification, the delivery schedule and the fee against milestones, then handles ownership: assigning the intellectual property to the commissioner, dealing with moral rights and credit, and licensing anything back to the creator, such as portfolio use. It requires the creator to warrant originality and to clear third party materials and contributor appearances, which is where most later problems originate. It provides for approvals and revisions so that subjective dissatisfaction does not become an open ended obligation, and sets out what happens if the project is cancelled part way through.

Common pitfalls

The dominant failure is relying on payment to transfer ownership. It does not: without a written assignment the creator keeps copyright, and a commissioner who has built a brand around the work may find it has only an implied licence. The second is uncleared third party material, such as music, stock footage or a contributor who never signed a release, which surfaces at distribution when it is most expensive to fix. The third is an approvals process with no limit on revisions or no deemed acceptance, which leaves the creator working indefinitely for a fixed fee.