Blog
Paying for Creative Work Doesn’t Mean You Own It
A growing e-commerce brand commissions a freelance illustrator to design a mascot for its packaging and marketing. The brand pays the agreed fee in full, receives the final files, and rolls the mascot out across boxes, social media, and a merchandise line launched six months later. When the illustrator sees the mascot on products that were never discussed, they raise the issue and point to their copyright. The brand’s response is the one most business owners would give without a second thought: we paid for this, so we own it.
Under Philippine law, that assumption about copyright ownership in commissioned work does not hold up on its own.
The country is trying to build a creative economy that owns more of what it makes, rather than one that mainly produces work for others to own. A national diagnostic report released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines this year found that Filipino creative industries already contribute close to 8 percent of GDP and nearly 18 percent of employment, but that the country remains a net importer of intellectual property, earning more from providing creative services than from owning the IP those services produce. The report’s own conclusion is that the shift the Philippines needs is one from fee-for-service production to ownership-based creative business models.¹ That shift starts at the level of individual contracts, in a rule that most commissioning businesses have never actually read.
The Law Splits Copyright Ownership Into Two Different Things
Section 178.4 of the Intellectual Property Code (Republic Act No. 8293) governs commissioned work, meaning any creative work a business or individual pays someone else to produce. It states that the person who commissioned and paid for the work owns the work itself, but the copyright remains with the creator, unless there is a written stipulation to the contrary.²
That single sentence separates two things most people assume are the same. Owning the physical file, the printed design, or the final video is not the same as owning the copyright that controls how that work can be reproduced, adapted, licensed, or reused. The brand in the example above owns the mascot files it received. It does not automatically own the right to put that mascot on merchandise, license it to a partner, or use it in a market the illustrator never anticipated, unless the contract said so in writing.
This is not a loophole or a technicality. It reflects a broader principle running through the IP Code: copyright and ownership of the physical object it is embodied in are treated as legally distinct, and copyright is never assumed to transfer just because money changed hands or a copy was delivered.³ A written stipulation is required specifically because the law does not want ownership of valuable creative rights to turn on assumptions, verbal understandings, or the fact that an invoice was paid.
When the commissioned output includes a recorded performance, another layer of rights may also apply. Actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and other performers may hold rights in the performance itself, separate from copyright in the underlying work. See our guide to talent agreements and performer rights in the Philippines.
A Written Assignment Has to Cover More Than the Price
For a company commissioning creative work, from a logo to a full campaign, the practical lesson is that payment terms and ownership terms are two different conversations, and only one of them is usually written down. A written copyright assignment should specify what is being transferred (the finished deliverable, the source or working files, or both), whether the transfer is a full assignment or only a license for a defined use, and when the transfer takes effect, which is often best tied to full and final payment rather than assumed to happen automatically at delivery.
The writing requirement itself is flexible in form. An authenticated email exchange or a digitally signed engagement letter that clearly states the copyright is being assigned can satisfy the law’s written stipulation requirement under the Philippines’ rules on electronic documents. A bare line on an invoice simply describing the work and its price is a weaker foundation, since it does not clearly express an intention to transfer copyright rather than just record a sale.⁴
There is one right a written assignment cannot reach. Moral rights, including the creator’s right to be credited and to object to distortion or misuse of their work, stay with the creator regardless of what happens to the copyright, and they cannot be assigned away.⁵ A business that wants to modify a commissioned work, remove attribution, or adapt it in ways the creator did not anticipate needs a separate, specific written waiver for that, not just a copyright assignment.
Creators Keep the Copyright Until They Sign It Away
For designers, photographers, videographers, musicians, and other creatives working on commission, the default rule cuts the other way. Copyright in the work belongs to the creator from the moment it is made, and it stays that way even after the client has paid in full and received the finished product. A client’s ability to use the work beyond what was agreed, whether that means reprinting it, adapting it, or licensing it to a third party, depends on what the contract actually says, not on the fact that the client paid for it.
This default protection is only useful if creators recognize it before signing a contract that gives it away. A commission agreement that includes a full copyright assignment clause is not unusual or improper on its own, but it is a meaningfully different deal than one that grants only a license for a specific use, and it is worth pricing and negotiating accordingly. Creators are also within their rights to keep source files, portfolio use, or reuse of underlying concepts for themselves unless the contract says otherwise, since none of that is given up automatically either. Copyright is not the only right that follows a creator past the point of sale. Visual artists in the Philippines also retain a resale right under the IP Code, entitling them to a share of a work’s value each time it is resold, a separate protection worth understanding alongside copyright.⁶
Ownership Is Becoming Part of the Country’s Creative Growth Strategy
The Philippine Creative Industries Development Act (Republic Act No. 11904) gives the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council a role in helping protect the intellectual property rights of Filipino creative-industry stakeholders and in building the skills, including contracting and negotiation, that creative businesses need to grow.⁷ It reflects the same conclusion the national diagnostic report reached from a different angle: the country’s creative industries are strong at producing work, and the next stage of growth depends on more of that work resulting in IP that Filipino creators and companies actually own and can build on.
That national goal is made up of transactions like the one between a brand and the illustrator it hired. Businesses that regularly commission creative work, and the creators who produce it, benefit from having their standard commission agreements reviewed for how they handle copyright, before the next project starts rather than after a dispute forces the question. A short legal review of a commission agreement, from either side of the transaction, is a far smaller investment than untangling ownership once a mascot is already on the shelves.
AJA Law advises both sides of these transactions, from creative businesses and brands that commission original work to the designers, photographers, videographers, and producers who create it. If you would like help reviewing a commission agreement, drafting a proper copyright assignment, or structuring how your business handles IP across freelance and agency relationships, our intellectual property and entertainment team is glad to assist.
If you require legal guidance on your matter or situation
Work WITH OUR TEAM
Footnotes
- World Intellectual Property Organization, Department of Trade and Industry, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, and Philippine Statistics Authority, The Creative Ecosystem of the Philippines: National Diagnostic Report (June 2026).
- Republic Act No. 8293, Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, Section 178.4.
- Republic Act No. 8293, Section 181.
- Republic Act No. 8792, Electronic Commerce Act, Sections 7 and 8, read together with Republic Act No. 8293, Section 180.2.
- Republic Act No. 8293, Sections 193, 195, and 198.
- Republic Act No. 8293, Section 200.
- Republic Act No. 11904, Philippine Creative Industries Development Act, Section 7, and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.
