SERVICE - ARTIST ENDORSEMENT RECOVERY

Artist Endorsement Recovery

SERVICE - ARTIST ENDORSEMENT RECOVERY

When a brand uses you to sell, that's an endorsement. Endorsements are paid for.

For artists and managers: when brand content borrows a recognisable song, voice, lyric, trend or association, there is more at stake than the recording. There is you.

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Your label may control the recording. Your publisher may control the composition. But your name, voice, persona, reputation and endorsement market belong to you, and when a brand's content trades on them, that is a separate commercial interest with a separate claim.

It is used without permission constantly. It is almost never paid for and in most cases, nobody in your team even knows which brands used your work, at what scale, or what it earned them.

What we do

We identify brand content that trades on your identity or association

We preserve the evidence, assess the commercial value of the implied endorsement, and manage the matter toward payment, licensing or resolution.

Where appropriate, we work alongside your label and publisher, so the recording, composition and endorsement positions are handled together, not in conflict.

Assessment

How we assess an endorsement claim

Not every use is a claim, and we would rather tell you that early than bill you for finding out. Here is how we work out whether a brand's content is worth pursuing.

1. Find the use, including the history

We identify brand, agency and creator content using your recordings or your identity — not only what went up this week, but what was published and left running. Content that has been quietly earning for three years is often worth more than anything posted this month.

1. Find the use, including the history

2. Read what the brand put around the music

The song is the starting point, not the case. We record every signal connecting the content to you personally: whether you are named on screen or in the caption, whether you are tagged, whether your image or footage appears, and whether the brand has come back to your catalogue repeatedly. An unattributed track in one post is a rights matter. A tagged post using your voice, from a brand on its fourth track of yours this year, is something else.

2. Read what the brand put around the music

3. Separate the interests

Your recording, your composition and your endorsement are three different commercial interests, and they are often controlled by three different parties. We map who holds what before anyone is contacted. Where your label or publisher has a position in the same use, we would rather coordinate than have three uncoordinated approaches land on the same brand in the same month.

3. Separate the interests

4. Establish the commercial context

Whether the content is genuinely commercial rather than incidental, how far it travelled, what the brand is, and which territory it was published in. Territory matters more than most people expect: the position for an artist in the US is meaningfully different from the UK, and it changes what is worth pursuing.

4. Establish the commercial context

5. Preserve the evidence before it moves

Posts get edited, archived and deleted, and they tend to do so faster once a brand knows someone is looking. We capture links, screenshots, timestamps, platform metadata, engagement and usage history first, and structure it so it holds up later.

5. Preserve the evidence before it moves

6. Value it, then give you a straight answer

We assess what the association would have cost the brand to buy properly, weigh that against how recoverable it looks, and tell you whether we think it is worth running. Sometimes the answer is no. Because we work on contingency, our incentive is to say so early rather than walk you through a process that ends nowhere.

6. Value it, then give you a straight answer

What makes a claim stronger?

The brand names you, or tags you in the caption. Your image, voice or footage appears in the content. The content is clearly commercial rather than incidental. The brand has used your catalogue repeatedly over a period. Your name or mark is registered. The content is still live, and still earning.

What makes a claim stronger?

What makes a claim weaker?

The track is used briefly with nothing else connecting it to you. The content is not commercial It was taken down quickly and reached very few people. It sits in a territory where the position is narrower. Another party's claim on the same use has already resolved the matter.

What makes a claim weaker?

FAQ's

Everything you need to know

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What counts as an endorsement if the brand didn't say my name?

It depends on what else is in the post, and the distinction matters. Use of your recording is a rights question, and it belongs to whoever controls the recording and the composition. An endorsement claim is a different thing: it turns on whether the content would reasonably be read as you being connected with the brand, or having approved it.

In the UK there is no automatic right to control how your name or image is used commercially. A claim has to show three things: that you have a reputation worth protecting, that the content misrepresents you as endorsing the brand, and that this caused you harm. In the US the position is broader, with established routes for false endorsement and, in many states, a right of publicity.

So the honest answer is that the song on its own is usually a rights matter. What turns it into an endorsement matter is everything the brand puts around it.

Does it change things if the brand tags me, names me, or uses my picture?

Considerably. Those are the signals that move content from a rights issue to an endorsement one. Roughly in order of weight:

Naming you, or putting your name on screen. The most direct signal there is. It ties you to the product explicitly, and it makes no difference that you and the brand are in unrelated lines of business.

Tagging or @-mentioning you in the caption. An express connection between the brand and you, published by the brand, in commercial content.

Using your image, or footage of you. Relevant, but rarely decisive on its own. It matters far more when the image is recognisably tied to a particular release or moment in your career, and when the brand has been publicly associating itself with you over a period.

Repeated use of your catalogue over time. A brand that has used several of your tracks across months or years has built a sustained association rather than made a one-off content choice. That carries real weight, it is much harder to characterise as an accident, and it usually values higher.

The song alone, with nothing else. Usually a rights matter rather than an endorsement one. The main exception is a distinctive voice deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, which is treated seriously in its own right, particularly in the US.

Most of the matters we see combine several of these. That is what the evidence pack is for: it captures the tags, captions, on-screen text, imagery and the pattern of use over time, so the endorsement question is assessed on the facts rather than argued in the abstract.

If your name is a registered trade mark the position is stronger again, which is one reason we also handle artist name and mark registration.

Whether there is a claim depends on the facts and the territory. That is what a case review is for.

What does it cost?

Nothing unless we recover. We work purely on contingency — no fees, no retainer, nothing up front. We are paid out of what we recover, and if we recover nothing, you pay nothing. If we don't think there's a claim worth pursuing, we'll tell you at case review rather than run up costs.

Do I need my label or publisher's permission?

No. Your endorsement interest is separate from the recording and the composition, and it's yours to act on. In practice we prefer to work alongside your label and publisher where they're also pursuing a use, so the recording, composition and endorsement positions are handled together rather than in conflict — that tends to produce a better result for everyone than three uncoordinated approaches to the same brand.

What if my label is already dealing with it?

That's usually a good thing. A label recovering on the recording doesn't recover anything for your endorsement interest, so the two can run in parallel. Tell us what's already in motion and we'll coordinate rather than cut across it.

Who actually runs the claims?

Our in-house legal team, led by a qualified solicitor. They run each claim end to end: evidence, rights validation, correspondence, negotiation and settlement. Where a matter needs to escalate, we work with a specialist litigation partner.

Will this damage my relationships with brands?

It shouldn't, and we work hard to make sure it doesn't. Brands are potential future endorsement partners, and an approach that establishes what your association is worth commercially is often the start of a paid relationship rather than the end of one. Nothing goes out without your approval, and we'll tell you when a matter is better left alone.

What do you need from me to start?

Whatever you've already seen; links are ideal, or just the name of the artist and permission to look. A case review is confidential and without obligation.

This page describes our services in general terms and is not advice on your particular situation. For a view on a specific case, ask us for a case review.

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