VO Agreements & Contracts (sample contract in thread)

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Lady Stardust ★
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Post by Lady Stardust ★ on May 25, 2018 1:34:23 GMT -8

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer and this post is not a substitute for legal advice. If you are looking to create a legally binding contract, I recommend consulting with a legal professional to make sure you cover your bases.

We've had questions from both actors and content creators on our Discord server about putting together a basic agreement they can put in place before work begins on a project. While larger companies and studios will almost always have their own contracts in place for actors to sign, working with independent clients occasionally results in the need to come up with your own. Many contract templates you may find on Google are overkill for simple indie projects, so just put what you need as it directly relates to your project.

2) to establish ownership and legal right of the client to use the recordings provided (including under what circumstances the recordings may be used), and

For the intents and purposes of this post, we are going to assume that this is a non-union contract hiring a freelance actor and there are no agents, managers or other third parties involved.

Here is a sample template that can be used as an agreement between clients/developers and voice actors:

(IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do not request editing access to this document - allowing someone to change it would result in the template being changed for everyone. To edit it for your needs, please go to File ==> Download and download in your preferred format, or save a copy to your own Google Drive and edit from there.)

• This contract is just an example, so feel free to add, delete or change things as necessary to suit the needs of your project. (Again, you may do this by going to File > Download---do not request edit access to the document)
  
• Please do keep in mind that this document has not been reviewed or prepared by anyone in the legal profession, so we recommend consulting with an attorney or other legal expert if you are able to do so.
• However, this can give a decent baseline for content creators or actors who are unsure how to write up an agreement.

• The actor wants assurance that the client does not intend to run off with the work without paying, and that the expectations and working conditions for the job shall be reasonable for the pay provided.
  
• The client wants to make sure they are getting a quality product that they will have the rights to use in their project without worrying about the actor making demands years down the line for additional payments or to their voice to be removed from the project.
  

Contracts are not necessary for unpaid hobby projects because there is no money at stake. However, for paid projects involving any significant sum of money and/or work, they are always a good idea. A contract shows, in writing, the intent of the actor to deliver the work and for the client to deliver payment for said work.

Now, if it's a small informal job with a friend or someone else you typically work closely with and trust, simply agreeing to details over e-mail may be sufficient for your needs. But if it's a larger-scale project, the contract should be a given.

YES. If you are asked to sign any sort of contract as a freelance actor or producer, make sure you read it thoroughly and feel free to bring up any questions or concerns you may have about its contents.

!! For a list of potential red flags in a contract you are asked to sign, please see the article here.

Pay rate
Rates should be clearly discussed in writing prior to starting work so that there are no surprises or discrepancies. By signing a contract, the actor is agreeing to perform the work for the project for the agreed-upon parameters, and the producer is agreeing that they are obligated to honor this payment. A deadline for delivering final payment may be established (for instance, payment will be delivered within 30 business days of services rendered / files delivered / receipt of invoice.) While upfront deposits are relatively uncommon in voice work, in the case that payment or partial payment is delivered to Actor before work commences, Actor should agree to refund this deposit in the event that they are unable to deliver the work.

Assess the severity of the offense. Problems can often be solved, or at least the damage mitigated, by communicating clearly and openly and working toward a solution. In most cases, disputes can be resolved internally between the parties---pursuing legal action against someone is costly and time-consuming, especially if a relatively small amount of money is at stake. Keep records of all communications related to the incident in case evidence is needed (for instance, if you are an actor who has a client who disappears and refuses to pay you after the work is delivered, you will have evidence of their signed contract stating that they agreed to pay you X amount by X date as well as timestamps of your e-mail communications with them where you followed up on payment.)

Got anything else that you think needs to be added? Have a sample contract template you want to share? Feel free to post it here!

This article will be updated and revisited periodically to deal with the changing landscape of the industry. As a reminder, the Internet is not a substitute for legal advice, so please consult an attorney if you wish to fully cover your bases.

All of the guides and resources on this forum are provided on a volunteer basis in the interest of free and open access to information. However, if you found them helpful, I'd love it if you buy me a coffee!

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Rebekah Amber Clark
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Post by Rebekah Amber Clark on May 25, 2018 8:18:54 GMT -8

I do have something to add!

Be careful that you DON'T just give out personal information you're not comfortable giving for no reason. I've been asked to provide my full social security number in exchange for working on a very small, indie project. When being paid by PayPal there is NO REASON to need to give out those types of personal info in order to be paid.

Remember that though most legit content creators are just doing their best to cover bases with a contract, that NOT everyone on the internet is your friend. Giving out social security numbers, home address, etc, should only be done if you feel that there is a legitimate reason for it and if you can trust the person or corporate entity to whom you are providing said information.

Lady Stardust ★
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Post by Lady Stardust ★ on May 25, 2018 20:08:07 GMT -8

I do have something to add!

Be careful that you DON'T just give out personal information you're not comfortable giving for no reason. I've been asked to provide my full social security number in exchange for working on a very small, indie project. When being paid by PayPal there is NO REASON to need to give out those types of personal info in order to be paid.

Remember that though most legit content creators are just doing their best to cover bases with a contract, that NOT everyone on the internet is your friend. Giving out social security numbers, home address, etc, should only be done if you feel that there is a legitimate reason for it and if you can trust the person or corporate entity to whom you are providing said information.

YES!! Absolutely, 100% agree. It's one thing if a legit company you are going to a studio for and recording with in person asks you to fill out a W-9 with all your info. It's an entirely different thing if Joe Schmoe from the Internet is paypaling you 100 bucks for a game and asking for the same.

A while back, I was in talks with an indie developer about doing some quick VO from home for his game. It was a relatively low budget job, around $150. He sent me a contract which all looked fine except for the "SSN" field which I obviously left blank. especially since one of my close friends had recently been the victim of (completely unrelated) identity theft. He sent it back to me saying I was required to fill out my SSN "for tax purposes". I said that the government has much better things to care about then if you Paypal someone $150 to do quick voices for your indie game that you and your friend are making. I also linked him to several sources talking about how such independent contractor payments were not required to be reported unless they were in excess of $600 (we were both based in the United States, so it wasn't a matter of stricter laws in another country or anything like that.)

He didn't budge. He insisted that the IRS would go after him over such a small amount even if he counted it as "payment to a friend". I said I'd rather lose the job than risk potential identity theft over a small VO job. I also made it clear that it wasn't necessarily that I didn't trust him, it's also that e-mails and accounts can be hacked and that if he had to send it to another person to process the finances, it's possible that person could have a breach of security, and so on and so forth.

I'm also fairly careful with home address especially now that I have been recently stalked (granted, the stalker repeatedly hung around a public place that I was known to frequent so it didn't have anything to do with getting my address online, but it still made me more aware of things.) There is also apparently some type of website where people brag about getting actor addresses and post those address for others to send fanmail. (I don't have any info on it but have heard from two other voice actors separately about this. I know people normally use doxxing sites for this purpose but it still makes me VERY wary. I would hope most indie game devs, animators etc are professional enough that they would not use this information for such purposes but you just have to be careful!) Of course they will need some kind of address if they are mailing you a check, but payment is normally done through Paypal these days which makes it largely unnecessary.

I have had a few people come back and claim that they are required to have my home address in order to make a contract "valid". I tried researching info about this online and asking a couple people on our Discord server who had some legal background if this is true or not, and didn't really get a definitive answer. I suppose if they're really insistent on it for the sole purpose of an indie game/video contract and they won't be actually sending you anything in the mail, if all else fails you could ask a friend who has a PO Box if you can "borrow" the address for this purpose or maybe even use a dummy address. Whenever a contract says "agreement between (name) based at (address)", I just list my city/state/country only and hope they don't ask for anything else.

That being said. There are certain legitimate corporations that will require certain info from you online in order to do work for them especially if it's anticipated to be more than $600 USD per year. For example, I am partnered as a freelance voice talent with a phone messaging site and they send me a 1099 every year from the income I make through their site. But they are a legitimate company and not random people online. If you have an actual company that needs personal info from you, do your research, Google them, make sure everything seems above board. Such personal info seems to be more of a requirement when working with overseas companies, FYI.

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Lady Stardust ★
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Post by Lady Stardust ★ on Dec 4, 2018 2:24:12 GMT -8

Feel free to change to suit your needs. Also, please keep in mind that this document has not been reviewed or prepared by anyone in the legal profession, so we recommend consulting with a legal expert on any project you are independently being hired/hiring for where a large sum of money is involved. However, this can give a decent baseline for content creators or actors who are unsure how to write up an agreement.

Website/Demo Reels ★ Twitch ★ Twitter ★ VAC Founder / Server Admin
For business inquiries, please contact via above website.

Lady Stardust ★
Administrator

Posts: 623
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor, Voice/Casting Director
Pronouns: she/they

Post by Lady Stardust ★ on Jan 25, 2023 23:12:36 GMT -8

In regards to the present concerns about AI, both this article and the contract template have been updated in hopes of setting a precedent that - while "full buyout in perpetuity" is reasonably needed for many types of VO work - such a buyout should NOT indicate implied agreement for the actor's voice to be used for synthetic recreation purposes such as AI voice modeling. Should text-to-speech technology be used in a project for stylistic reasons, usage limitations should be clearly spelled out in the contract so the actor may give informed consent as to how their voice modeling is to be used.

NAVA Voices has an informative page on this here:
navavoices.org/synth-ai/

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