In 2024, a freelance model named Francheska Pujols signed a release with the retailer Rainbow (sued as Rainbow USA, Inc.). According to the court filings, that release let the company alter, crop, distort, or composite her images “whether intact or in part,” without restriction as to changes or transformations. Pujols alleges that starting in March 2026 Rainbow used artificial intelligence to create new images of her in poses and settings she never shot, including at least one in which her undergarments are visible.
In its filings, Rainbow says the images “may have been altered” and argues that the release covers alteration by any technology, including AI. Pujols argues that altering photographs she approved is different from creating new depictions of her. In mid-July 2026, a New York court denied her motion for a preliminary injunction (reported by Bloomberg Law and The Fashion Law on July 17). That ruling did not end the case. The underlying question, whether a broadly worded grant reaches a use neither side described at signing, is unresolved.
The Pujols release uses different words, but the question has the same shape: how far does a broad grant reach? Many creator contracts ask the question in fewer words: a grant of rights “in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised.”
The sentence sounds like boilerplate, but it is a live legal instrument
Standard contract language has a habit of disappearing into the background. “All media now known or hereafter devised” reads like throat-clearing, the kind of phrase a lawyer adds out of caution, not intent. But the phrase does real work. It does not describe the deliverables a creator was hired to make. It describes every deliverable a technology that does not exist yet could someday make from the same material.
A beverage brand asks a creator for three launch clips, for Instagram and TikTok. The draft agreement also proposes use “in all media now known or hereafter devised.” Unless the draft limits it elsewhere, that clause reaches far beyond the three clips and the two platforms named in the brief. The phrase says nothing about how long the grant lasts. Unless the draft sets an end date, nothing in it ties the grant to the campaign, and nothing requires the brand to return and ask again when a new distribution channel, or a new way of generating derivative content from the original footage, appears.
Dave Chappelle described a related problem in Unforgiven, a 2020 video he posted to Instagram. He said an early contract with Comedy Central gave the network his name and likeness “in perpetuity throughout the universe,” and that he was not paid when the show was licensed to streamers. On February 12, 2021, in a video titled “Redemption Song,” he said he had gotten his name and license back and that he had been paid millions of dollars. The amount is his own statement.
License or buyout is the question underneath the clause
A broad future-use clause matters partly because it can sit beside a question the deal never settles: did this agreement transfer ownership of the work, or only permission to use it?
U.S. copyright law treats these as genuinely different transactions. Ownership can be transferred, in whole or in part, but 17 U.S.C. §204(a) requires that kind of transfer to be in writing and signed by the rights holder. A non-exclusive license carries no such requirement; it can even be implied. The result is a legal system that puts an enormous amount of weight on a distinction that a casual reading of an agreement can easily miss.
Reinsdorf v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc. is a useful illustration of what happens when nobody resolves that distinction cleanly before the work starts moving. Photographer Richard Reinsdorf shot images for Skechers over several years. His invoices stated license terms of six months, generally limited to North America, for point-of-sale displays, magazines, and outdoor ads. Reinsdorf alleged that Skechers kept using the images for years beyond that term, overseas, and on packaging. Skechers disputed those allegations.
When sued, Skechers argued that it was a joint author of the finished advertisements, which would have let it use them without license limits. In a February 6, 2013 order (922 F. Supp. 2d 866, 2013 WL 454828), the federal district court (C.D. Cal., Judge Dean Pregerson) denied Skechers’ motion for summary judgment on that point, holding that a genuine factual dispute remained over whether the parties intended to be co-authors, pointing to the usage fees and the time-and-territory limits in Reinsdorf’s invoices as evidence cutting against shared authorship.
The same order barred Reinsdorf from seeking statutory damages and attorney’s fees, which he did not contest, because his photographs were not registered in time. It also excluded his survey and damages experts’ opinions and rejected his claim to a share of Skechers’ indirect profits.
The terms of the deal lived on invoices, and the parties disagreed about what those invoices conveyed. Reinsdorf said they gave Skechers a limited license. Skechers argued that they reflected a transfer of the photographs for its exclusive use, with only a duty to pay more for use beyond six months. A deal documented that way left “what exactly did this deal convey” to be argued in court after the work was already in use.
A brand and a creator need the same answer, not just a price
None of this is an argument against broad rights, long terms, or generous compensation. A brand may have good reasons to want flexibility across new formats and future campaigns. A creator may be willing to sell exactly that flexibility, at a price that reflects what is actually being sold.
The problem is not scope. It is silence about scope. A $2,000 invoice and a five-year, all-media, worldwide license are not the same transaction wearing different clothes; they are different transactions, and a price set for one does not cover the other.
Ask explicitly: license or buyout? Then put the actual boundary in writing:
- Media: which formats and platforms, named specifically, not “all media.”
- Term: how long the permission lasts, and what happens at the end.
- Territory: where the work may be used, and whether that means availability or active marketing.
- Paid use: whether organic posting and paid advertising are the same permission or two different ones.
- Edits: whether cropping, translating, dubbing, or algorithmically altering the material is included.
- New technology: whether a use “hereafter devised” needs a separate conversation before it happens.
- Sublicensing: whether the counterparty can hand the rights to someone else.
- Renewal and compensation: what happens, and what is owed, if the relationship or the use continues past the original scope.
The clause should match the campaign, not outlive it
Institutions of One is not a claim that every broad grant is exploitative, or that every narrow one is fair. It is a reminder that the difference between a scoped deal and an open-ended one is legible in the contract, if anyone reads it that closely before signing, and that “now known or hereafter devised” is not neutral language. It is language that can reach further than either side pictured at signing, and that reach may go unnoticed until a new use, or a new technology, tests it.
Ask what the contract actually says. Then ask whether it says what both sides think it says.
Sources and further reading
- U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 1: Copyright Basics
- U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 12: Recordation of Transfers and Other Documents
- U.S. Copyright Office, FAQ: Assignment of Copyright Ownership
- Reinsdorf v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc., 922 F. Supp. 2d 866, 2013 WL 454828 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2013) (amended order on summary judgment, motions in limine, and objections to evidence), CourtListener
- Reinsdorf v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc., No. CV 10-07181 DDP (C.D. Cal.), Amended Order Re: Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Motions in Limine, and Objections to Evidence, Dkt. 225 (Feb. 6, 2013)
- PetaPixel, “Photographer Suing Skechers for $250M for Violating Licensing Agreement” (April 4, 2012)
- Verified Complaint, Pujols v. Rainbow USA, Inc., Index No. 157543/2026 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., N.Y. County), NYSCEF Doc. 1 (filed June 15, 2026)
- Rainbow’s memorandum of law opposing the preliminary injunction and supporting a cross-motion to dismiss, NYSCEF Doc. 24 (July 8, 2026)
- AI Fashion Law, “Pujols v. Rainbow Shops: The AI Likeness Case Rewriting the Model Release” (July 29, 2026; updated September 3, 2026)
- PetaPixel, “Model Sues Fashion Brand After It AI-Generated Pictures of Her” (June 1, 2026; reports Pujols’s first filing, on May 22, 2026, which she withdrew and refiled as the June 15, 2026 complaint listed above)
- CBS News, report on Dave Chappelle’s Instagram post about Chappelle’s Show returning to Netflix (February 12, 2021)
- The IPKat, “Chappelle’s Show on Netflix – the unforgiving tension between an artist and the creations he does not own” (December 9, 2020)
- Consequence, report on Chappelle’s “Redemption Song” video (February 12, 2021)
- Hypebeast, report on Chappelle’s “Redemption Song” video and the full quote (February 12, 2021)
- The Fashion Law, report on the denial of the preliminary injunction in Pujols v. Rainbow (July 17, 2026)
- Bloomberg Law, report on the denial of the preliminary injunction (July 17, 2026)
- Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, Columbia Law School, “Overreaching Clauses About New Media Rights”
- Digital Media Law Project, “Creating a Written Contract to Transfer or License Rights Under Copyright”
General educational information, not legal advice. The Reinsdorf and Pujols cases are discussed based on court filings and contemporaneous reporting cited above; this account reflects reporting through September 3, 2026, when the Pujols case was still in its early stages: the court had denied a preliminary injunction, and according to that report Pujols filed an amended complaint on August 19, 2026. No court had ruled on the merits. The case may have moved since. The Chappelle account is drawn from his own public remarks as reported by news outlets. Contract language, applicable law, and outcomes depend on the specific agreement and jurisdiction.