Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and name

[LucyE]

Hi, all. I'm in the process of signing up as a model at MFC, and haven't been able to get model status here, yet, but it seems like many of you are really knowledgeable and I thought someone might be able to answer a question. (I haven't seen this particular question answered when searching the boards, but if it has been answered, I apologize!)

I've read the MFC contract thoroughly, and I understand that anything I do on MFC is their content to do whatever they please with until the end of time. I'm a little bit confused about parts of this passage, though. It seems kind of ambiguous.

Is the stage name I use on MFC their property as well? Can I use the same stage name elsewhere for my own gain now or in the future? For instance, if in the future I no longer broadcast on MFC and am not under their contract, but use the same stage name, could they technically come after me if they thought it would be to their benefit? (If this were so, that would, according to this clause, mean that they own my likeness as well, not just images that I transmit on their site. That can't be true...?)

And when they say "all images and videos of Performer(s)...including all audio and text pertaining to or provided by Model," do they have some right to my images/videos that exist elsewhere or may in the future? Or just the ones I "provide" to them by working on the site?

"MODEL grants to MFC a perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive license, all rights and copyrights, and any future obtained rights, to use in any and all possible ways the Licensed Work, Related Licensed Content, Derivative Works, and names, likenesses, voices, and personas of MODEL, including without limitations, all images and videos of Performer(s) and the Performances including all audio and text pertaining to or provided by MODEL, everywhere in the universe, in any medium and by any means or technology now known or hereafter developed, including but not limited to via wide area computer networks and the Internet."

I just want to make sure I understand what I'm signing. Any input is greatly appreciated. And again, sorry if this has been answered and I missed it.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

Welcome Lucy! :hello2:

I'm a bit out of it, but from what I gathered you wish to know if people can steal your images/vids/whatevs. They can and will. However if you are on MFC, and you happen to find your images where they don't belong...you can have them removed. :thumbright:

 

[LucyE]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

Welcome Lucy! :hello2:

I'm a bit out of it, but from what I gathered you wish to know if people can steal your images/vids/whatevs. They can and will. However if you are on MFC, and you happen to find your images where they don't belong...you can have them removed. :thumbright:

Thanks for the welcome

I'm aware that people can and will steal everything. I'm concerned more about the contract and the ambiguity in the clause that states that MFC has eternal rights to your name and image. I know that they have rights to those things in regards to what I post/transmit on MFC, but do they have rights to my stage name or image if I use it elsewhere and the content isn't also on MFC?

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

I don't believe they will say anything about that, though I could be wrong. :handgestures-salute:

 

[AllisonWilder]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

It's obviously a little more complex than this, but basically anything on your MFC profile or on your stream belongs to MFC. So for example if you uploaded some pictures and someone was taking them to use as your own, you could provide MFC with that info and they would send DMCA's because it's their property. However, if you delete things from your profile or galleries they don't just keep it indefinitely or anything.

It's been a loooong time since I read the MFC contract, but I've never heard of them going after anyone for using the same name/pictures/content elsewhere (and from that viewpoint that would mean I was breaching the contract as I operate as AllisonWilder on every site I'm on).

Also, it's great that you're reading through the contract before going ahead with everything. There are too many girls that don't have a clue what they're signing.


Welcome to the forums! :hello2:


edit: I just woke up, so hopefully someone comes along to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[LucyE]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

Thanks, Allison!
I'm so glad I found this place I've already learned so much reading everyone's posts, and it allays some of my fears to hear people's actual experiences. Everyone seems so kind and helpful!

I've talked to a couple of girls about their experience with camming and doing other kinds of work where they rely on using their image, and so far I haven't heard any horror stories. The negatives seem to largely be attributed to stolen images/content, or people not understanding that their content will end up all over the internet- but theft isn't any company's fault and the part about content being used forever for anything is pretty clear in the contract, so I suppose one could only blame herself for not reading/understanding.

As you said, using the same name is pretty common, and it would be ridiculous if any company were able to contractually obligate any person to give up rights to their own image/likeness in all forms, forever. (And I suspect it would never hold up in court.) Even high profile people who sign exclusively to any company aren't signing away their right to make money using their own image after their contract ends...

I've emailed MFC with a few very specific questions, so I hope that I get a proper response.

 

[zippypinhead]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

I've written many paragraphs addressing these concerns of yours, if you would like to have a look at what I think about it. Mind you, I am not a lawyer. I am just a concerned citizen with a bit of IP law knowledge and strong opinions on the matter.

The thing of it is, though, that all of these camsites pretty much have the same language in their model agreements, but their enforcement of these claims to rights seem nonexistent. It's almost as if the same contract got circulated around, and nobody really sat down with a lawyer to judge the viability or legality of the thing, and these sites just post it hoping that it'll serve as an adequate catch-all to cover any legal issues they might run into. It's unscrupulous, to be sure, and it presents all sorts of hypothetical problems, but at the end of the day, people on both sides of the document just seem to treat it like iTunes user agreement; they click "I agree" with the understanding that nobody really seems to give a shit. I can only assume that this sort of wording seems easier to put down than more open and fair licensing policies. So, yes, technically, by signing the document, you're essentially signing away a lot of rights, but at this point, nobody who is asking for these rights seems too concerned with actually tracking or enforcing such claims. So, the best you can hope for in signing the agreement is that they don't change their minds one day, and you don't end up becoming a segment in a human centiPad.

 

[mankor]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

I agree with zippy, it's most likely just a generic contract, probably copied mostly from a lawyer's template which may or may not have anything particularly to do with cam sites but online media in general.

If you read all the tortuously long terms and conditions of the Playstation or XBox software updates you'd probably come away believing that they own the rights to use your gaming hands for their advertising, and that you don't own the hardware but merely paid a one-time lease fee. It's all legal mumbo-jumbo to most of us.

I think nobody can own your stage name but you, nobody can own your likeness but you, Any photos you take or have professionally taken of you are yours (depending on the contract with the photographer, but they can never own your likeness). I think the MFC ownership will extend to recorded privates, your webcam stream through the MFC website or broadcast software, and anything you create using the MFC website such as your MFC profile (but not photos that you take yourself and put up there).

In practical terms they will probably only chase this for content that has been recorded from MFC and is being sold elsewhere on the internet, so watch out for that one if you record an MFC show that you do and try to sell it on a rival website.

 

[Evvie]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

"MODEL grants to MFC a perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive license, all rights and copyrights, and any future obtained rights, to use in any and all possible ways the Licensed Work, Related Licensed Content, Derivative Works, and names, likenesses, voices, and personas of MODEL, including without limitations, all images and videos of Performer(s) and the Performances including all audio and text pertaining to or provided by MODEL, everywhere in the universe, in any medium and by any means or technology now known or hereafter developed, including but not limited to via wide area computer networks and the Internet."

Personally I'm just really pleased that the lawyers were thinking of space travel when this was written.

I also applaud you for actually reading your contract. I remember about a year ago on Tumblr, some snippets of the MFC model contract were shared around with those scary statements like "we reserve the right to use your full legal name in our advertising", and chicks were absolutely freaking out. They were acting like it was some huge conspiracy and now MFC was going to destroy them all - when in reality, they were kind of stupid for not reading their contracts in the first place. Yeah, everyone accepts the iTunes TOS without reading it. But why in the world would anyone sign up for what is essentially a porn agency without reading the fine print? You are signing up to broadcast hours and hours of being naked and doing sexual things, and you really don't care what MFC is going to do with that? Goodness.

Regardless, I agree with the other folks here. A lot of the MFC contract is never enforced and never brought up. It is primarily a huge safety net for them; in case they get in trouble, the blame can be shifted to the model instead. As far as anyone is aware, MFC does not actually use model images and names in advertising - while we know that other sites like Streamate do.

♥ I have never heard of any model getting in to any trouble with MFC for reuse of a stage name (MFC is actually considered to be very open about this)
♥ They do not have any right to videos or pictures you produce elsewhere in the future.

While most pirates/cappers will argue to the contrary, this contract does put you in the advantageous position of being able to use MFC to send out DMCA notices on stolen content, even if it is not your live cam feed. Whether or not this is a good idea is another matter (I feel I have developed a position on this that is contrary to what many models believe in) but it is still an extremely valuable resource.

 

[Just Me]

Re: Question about MFC's contract regarding likeness and nam

"MODEL grants to MFC a perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive license, all rights and copyrights, and any future obtained rights, to use in any and all possible ways the Licensed Work, Related Licensed Content, Derivative Works, and names, likenesses, voices, and personas of MODEL, including without limitations, all images and videos of Performer(s) and the Performances including all audio and text pertaining to or provided by MODEL, everywhere in the universe, in any medium and by any means or technology now known or hereafter developed, including but not limited to via wide area computer networks and the Internet."

Personally I'm just really pleased that the lawyers were thinking of space travel when this was written.

I also applaud you for actually reading your contract. I remember about a year ago on Tumblr, some snippets of the MFC model contract were shared around with those scary statements like "we reserve the right to use your full legal name in our advertising", and chicks were absolutely freaking out. They were acting like it was some huge conspiracy and now MFC was going to destroy them all - when in reality, they were kind of stupid for not reading their contracts in the first place. Yeah, everyone accepts the iTunes TOS without reading it. But why in the world would anyone sign up for what is essentially a porn agency without reading the fine print? You are signing up to broadcast hours and hours of being naked and doing sexual things, and you really don't care what MFC is going to do with that? Goodness.

Regardless, I agree with the other folks here. A lot of the MFC contract is never enforced and never brought up. It is primarily a huge safety net for them; in case they get in trouble, the blame can be shifted to the model instead. As far as anyone is aware, MFC does not actually use model images and names in advertising - while we know that other sites like Streamate do.

♥ I have never heard of any model getting in to any trouble with MFC for reuse of a stage name (MFC is actually considered to be very open about this)
♥ They do not have any right to videos or pictures you produce elsewhere in the future.

While most pirates/cappers will argue to the contrary, this contract does put you in the advantageous position of being able to use MFC to send out DMCA notices on stolen content, even if it is not your live cam feed. Whether or not this is a good idea is another matter (I feel I have developed a position on this that is contrary to what many models believe in) but it is still an extremely valuable resource.

...and to further what Evvie said. These types of contracts are completely standard and nothing unusual for the adult industry and many others. There are many other contracts out there that people sign everyday for work that are more onerous than MFC's. Things like non compete clauses, standards of conduct and agreeing to binding arbitration.