What Happens to a Creator's Brand Deals and Usage Rights When They Die?

Three separate questions that get blended together

When a creator dies, it raises three genuinely separate questions, each with its own answer: what happens to the copyright in content the creator already made? What happens to an ongoing agreement covering content not yet delivered? And what happens to the usage rights a brand has already paid for and received? It's precisely the blending of these three questions that creates the uncertainty. The topic is distinct from what happens when the brand goes bankrupt (a financial event on the counterparty's side) and from what happens when a creator sells or exits their channel (a voluntary transaction) — death is neither a financial event nor a voluntary act, and that gives it a different legal starting point.

This is general legal orientation based on Denmark's Copyright Act (ophavsretsloven) and common principles of Danish contract and inheritance law, not advice on a specific case. If a creator genuinely dies mid-collaboration, a lawyer or the estate's executor (bobestyrer) is the right next contact.

Copyright passes by inheritance like any other asset

Copyright is a property right, and as a starting point the ordinary rules of inheritance apply to it just as they do to a creator's other assets — it passes to the estate and on to the heirs, unless a will provides otherwise. Protection doesn't end at death: under ophavsretsloven § 63, copyright in a work lasts "until 70 years have passed after the year of the author's death." In practice, that means the heirs take over the right to decide on economic exploitation of the deceased's content — photos, video, text — for up to 70 years after the year of death, the same way they take over any other asset of value in the estate.

Moral rights are a partial exception

Alongside the economic copyright, an author also holds so-called moral rights under ophavsretsloven § 3: the right to be credited in accordance with good practice (§ 3(1)), and the right for the work not to be altered or made available in a way that's offensive to the author's literary or artistic reputation or character (§ 3(2)). The author can't waive this right, beyond a use narrowly defined by type and scope (§ 3(3)). According to Dansk Forfatterforening's (the Danish Writers' Union) own legal guidance, a violation of § 3 after the author's death can be raised not only by the heir who inherits the economic copyright, but specifically also by the deceased's spouse, descendants in the direct line, or siblings — and for violations serious enough to be considered a genuine cultural-interest matter, by the public as well. In other words: the right to protect the content's integrity and correct attribution reaches further after death than the economic inheritance alone.

What happens to an ongoing, not-yet-delivered agreement?

This is where the consequence of death often differs from what people expect. As covered in the article on what happens when a creator sells or exits their channel, a creator's performance in a brand deal is typically a personal performance — the brand paid for this specific person's voice, trust and relationship with their audience, not for "content from an account." A basic principle in the law of obligations is that a personal performance of this kind can, as a starting point, only be fulfilled by the debtor themselves, unless otherwise agreed. When the debtor dies, neither the estate nor the heirs can genuinely step into the deceased's place and deliver the remaining, not-yet-delivered part of the agreement — they can't post, film or appear as the deceased. The unpaid, not-yet-performed part of the agreement therefore lapses as a starting point, unless the contract itself addressed the situation (for example, by giving the brand a right to a refund for undelivered work, or by letting a named colleague or an underlying company step in).

If the creator operated through a company (typically a Danish ApS), the company doesn't automatically cease to exist when the owner dies — it's a separate legal person, and the shares become part of the estate like any other asset. But that doesn't necessarily solve the personal element: if the brand specifically paid for this individual's participation, not just for "content from the company," the performance itself can still be impossible to fulfil meaningfully through a different person at the company, unless the contract explicitly allows for it.

What happens to usage rights a brand has already paid for?

A separate question: what about the usage rights a brand has already been granted and paid for, on content already delivered and published? The same underlying logic applies here as in the article on what happens when the brand goes bankrupt: a permission that's already been granted and fully performed doesn't automatically lapse just because the rights holder later dies. Copyright passes by inheritance to the estate/heirs, who step into the deceased's position as rights holder — but they inherit the right as it stood, including the usage rights the deceased had already validly granted. A brand that has downloaded and paid for material within an agreed usage-rights window therefore generally doesn't lose the right to keep using it, even if the creator dies mid-window — see also what usage rights you keep if an influencer deletes their content or account for the related point that a legal usage right and a technical dependency on something still being live are two different things.

Three situations that look similar but aren't the same

Decision framework

Worked example (hypothetical)

The figures below are a made-up example to illustrate the point — not a real customer case.

A brand has a 6-month ambassador deal with an influencer worth DKK 90,000 total — DKK 15,000/month for three posts a month, paid on an ongoing basis after each month's delivery. After three months (DKK 45,000 paid for nine delivered posts, all downloaded as raw files), the influencer dies unexpectedly. The brand keeps the usage rights to the nine already-delivered, already-paid posts and can keep using them in its own channels and ads, as agreed. The remaining three months and nine posts — worth DKK 45,000 — can't be delivered by the estate or heirs, because the performance was personal. That part of the agreement lapses, and the brand owes no further payment for content that will never be delivered. Had the contract instead included a clause addressing what happens on death — for instance, that an already-reserved, unpaid amount for the coming month should revert to the brand, or that a named colleague could take over a defined part of the delivery — both sides would have had clarity in advance instead of having to work it out afterward.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a contract automatically binds the estate or heirs to keep delivering. Without an explicit clause, the personal-performance rule governs, not the contract's general wording about deliverables.
• Blending already-delivered content together with what's still outstanding. These are two separate questions with two separate answers — one survives death, the other generally doesn't.
• Assuming access to a social media account follows the same rules as copyright. Account access itself is a separate, platform-specific question governed by the platform's own terms, not by ophavsretsloven — that's outside the scope of this article and should be resolved directly with the platform.
• Never having addressed the question in the contract at all. Very few influencer contracts mention death at all, which leaves both sides without an agreed answer if it happens.

Make Influence's perspective

At Make Influence, we haven't had a creator die mid-collaboration ourselves — thankfully, it's rare. But precisely because it's rare, it's also one of the clearest examples of a gap in standard contracts: most agreements cover non-delivery, termination and force majeure in detail, but rarely address what should actually happen to a remaining, unpaid part of the deliverable if the other party dies. Our recommendation is to address it in the same place you already address termination and payment for partially completed work — see What to Put in an Influencer Contract for the rest of the contract's basic building blocks. This is our operational experience, not a general legal rule.

FAQ

Can the estate or an heir keep posting on the creator's account after death?

Ophavsretsloven doesn't address account access itself — that's a separate, platform-specific question. Even if an heir could technically log in, that doesn't change the fact that the brand's deal was typically a personal performance with that specific deceased individual, which generally can't be fulfilled further by someone else unless the contract explicitly allows it.

Do the heirs automatically take over the right to collect unpaid fees?

Yes. An unpaid fee for work already delivered is an ordinary receivable that forms part of the estate like any other claim, and the heirs can demand it's paid.

Can a brand demand a refund for content that never got delivered?

It depends on how the deal was structured. If payment ran on an ongoing basis after each delivery (as in the worked example above), there's typically nothing to refund, because nothing was paid for the undelivered part. If payment was made upfront for content that never got delivered, that's legally more uncertain and should be assessed specifically, with a lawyer or against the estate.

Does the same apply if the creator operated through an ApS?

Partly different. The company doesn't automatically cease to exist when the owner dies — it's a separate legal person. But if the brand specifically paid for that individual's participation, not just for content from the company, the personal element of the performance can still make the remaining delivery impossible to fulfil through a different person at the company.

How long does copyright protection last after death?

70 years after the end of the creator's year of death, per ophavsretsloven § 63 — exactly the same protection period as for other works.

Can a brand freely edit or reuse old clips however it wants after the creator's death?

No. The moral rights under § 3 — the right to correct attribution and to the work not being altered in an offensive way — can't be waived and continue after death. Violations can be raised by the heir, the deceased's spouse, descendants or siblings.