7 Crucial Elements Every Podcast Guest Agreement Must Have for Podcasters to Protect Their Podcasts (& Money)
Want to know what you need in your podcast guest agreement when interviewing guests on your podcast? These are the essential terms you need as a podcaster.
Having a guest on your podcast is extremely fun and exciting, and if you're anything like me, you are researching everything you need to ensure you have everything you need to legally use that interview while protecting your podcast and your money. As a lawyer myself who drafts contracts for podcasters like you, I am giving you the crucial terms you need in your podcast guest agreement.
So, when you purchase a podcast guest agreement, also referred to as a guest release form template or podcast guest form, or if you are grabbing a free podcast agreement template off the internet, you know what to look for or include in these podcast legal documents.
After learning about what you need in your podcast guest agreement, you will have everything you need to legally edit and publish your guest interview and protect your podcast and your money.
This post is all about the critical elements every podcast needs in a podcast guest agreement.
Ultimate Podcast Guest Agreement
Podcast guest form
1. Get full ownership or a broad license
You have two options. You could either agree that:
the guest assign all its rights to the contents of the recording to you, so you have full ownership of the interview recording, and you can do whatever you want with it; or
the guest keeps its intellectual property rights but gives you a license to do whatever you need to do with it.
I go into more detail about what assignment and license mean in this blog post on the 3 Key Reasons Every Podcaster And Guest Must Have This Essential Podcast Contract.
Whether or not you have your guests assign or license their rights to you is your choice. There is no right or wrong answer. If you pay the guest to be on your show, it might justify having all rights assigned to you. If you do not pay the guest at all, you can still agree to have the guest assign all rights to you, but the question is whether that is fair. If you have a huge audience and being on your podcast would give the guest a lot of exposure, that may justify the assignment too. But, the guest may have objections against the assignment of all of its rights.
In any case, a license can also give you all the rights you need to use and edit the recording in any way you want and publish it anywhere you want without the guest being able to object to any of it. It just requires more wording.
2. Get consent
No matter where you live and the applicable law, you need your guest's consent to be recorded if you will use it for your podcast. You may think you already have that consent because the guest agreed to be on your podcast. No, that's wrong! You need the guest's explicit consent to be recorded and for you to use it for your podcast. You need the correct wording for that in your podcast guest agreement.
If you do not have that consent, and the guest wants you to edit or even take the podcast episode down, the guest can force you to, based on the mere fact that the guest did not give you explicit consent.
You can avoid all that trouble by just having this wording in your podcast guest agreement.
I go into more detail about the reasons you need the consent of your guest in this blog post on the 3 Key Reasons Every Podcaster And Guest Must Have This Essential Podcast Contract.
3. Ensure you get the quality you need & no obligation to publish
You can have such a great interview with your guest, but if the sound quality is crap, your listeners will not listen to your episode. Listeners won't mind awkward pauses or little blips in your episode, but they will not forgive the poor sound quality, (regular) annoying notification sounds, or background noise.
So, you need to ensure your guest is taking the proper measures for maximum sounds quality and insert a practical list in your podcast guest agreement of all the measures the guest needs to take, especially if you are recording the interview remotely, like making sure the guest's phone is on "aeroplane mode," for example.
That way, the guest understands what the guest needs to do to prepare for the interview.
Also, if you decide not to air the podcast episode due to poor sound quality, the frustrated guest can not claim that the guest could not do anything about the dog constantly barking in the background.
In any case, you want to include an additional clause stating that you are not obligated to publish the recording as a podcast episode (for whatever reason). It's your podcast; if you think publishing the episode would do your podcast more harm than good, it's your choice not to air it.
4. Be upfront about your questions (so you get the answers you want)
Another thing you need to do to maximise the quality of your interview with your guest is to agree beforehand on the questions you will ask the guest. That way, the guest is prepared for the questions to come, and you drastically decrease the chance of your guest feeling awkward or uncomfortable answering the question or even refusing to answer your question. Depending on the type of interview and the subject, you might not be able to formulate the exact questions to ask, but you can at least agree on the topics you will be asking questions about.
Your podcast guest agreement should reference the questions agreed upon (by email or otherwise). Or, if the questions have not been agreed upon yet, the deadline by which the question list will be completed.
Always insert the right in your podcast guest agreement to deviate from the questions agreed upon or to ask follow-up questions to clarify that you're not going to be too rigid on the questions to be asked and the guest is prepared for more.
That way, both you and the guest are fully prepared and create a podcast episode packed with value.
5. Get all permissions to edit (without prior approval)
As the podcaster, you want to have complete freedom in how you edit the recording for your podcast episode, but also in editing and repurposing the recording for social media to promote the podcast and that episode.
Suppose you have a license to the guest's intellectual property rights to the recording's content. In that case, you need to include in your podcast guest agreement an explicit right to edit the recording for the purpose of the podcast episode and promotional activities without requiring prior approval from the guest.
It happens that guests will want you to edit the podcast episode a certain way or even ask you to edit a small clip of the episode you posted on social media for whatever reason. You want to avoid that from happening and have the guest understand that, as long as you are not hurting the guest, you can edit and repurpose the recording as agreed, however, and whenever you want.
This is also beneficial to the guest because if you had to ask the guest for permission every time you post something of that recording or be afraid that the guest will ask you to re-edit that, you would not be promoting the episode as much, which means that the guest will get way less exposure.
6. Ensure you will never have to pay (more than you already have)
Whether the rights of the guest are assigned or licensed to you, you need to ensure it is clear that either the guest does not get paid at all or, if the guest does get paid, that is all the guest receives.
Guests can have a funny way of randomly popping up to ask for money when they find out how well you are doing. You want to avoid that from happening.
If the intellectual property rights of the guest are licensed to you, then the guest could ask you for royalties, and if you refuse to pay those royalties, the guest could force you to take down the episode (in court). So, you must explicitly state that the license is royalty-free and the guest has no rights to any other compensation.
If the rights of the guest have been assigned to you, and you have not agreed upon whether or not the guest gets paid, the guest could sue you, too, for compensation in exchange for that value. Depending on all facts and circumstances, the court could then decide that the guest should be fairly compensated for the transferred intellectual property rights. So, even then, you want to explicitly state in your podcast guest agreement that the guest receives no compensation.
That way, you don't suddenly have to (over)pay the guest, lose money, or even take the episode down.
7. Protect yourself against what the guest may say
Not only should you be protected against anything the guest does, but you must also have the proper protections for whatever your listeners may do.
Even if you have the correct disclaimer in place in your show notes and on your podcast's website (if you don't, then you can get the disclaimers you need with my Legal Website Bundle), listeners may still make claims against you for whatever your guests say on your podcast.
You want to ensure that whatever your guests say will not negatively affect you in any way. Therefore, you need indemnities in place, which basically say that "you, guest, are responsible for your own words, and you shall help me and reimburse me if anyone makes claims against me for what you say." This is an extra layer of production, so you don't lose money for having a guest on your show.
With all the crucial terms in place, you can rest assured that you can:
do what you want with your interview recording without the guest being able to limit you in any way; and
ensure you don't have to (over)pay the guest or even lose money!
Free podcast guest agreement template
Now you know the essential terms your podcast guest agreement must include; you should make sure these crucial terms are included in your podcast guest form if you are looking for a free podcast guest agreement template online.
However, the free versions I have seen on Google are usually very short. It's usually a simple guest consent agreement (with just the consent to be recorded) or a simple podcast guest email template.
So, make sure to include the essential terms missing in your free podcast guest agreement template to get the complete protection you need.
Podcast release form template
If you want to ensure your podcast guest agreement has all the essential elements I discussed in this blog post, and you take your podcast seriously, you can purchase my podcast release form template in my contract shop!
My podcast guest agreement is a 2-in-1 template for both podcaster and podcast guest, so if you are a guest on someone else podcast, too, you have a template for your benefit too!
It also includes a version that you can use as terms and conditions you can include in your guest application form, so you don't have the awkwardness of having to send a contract to the guest for the guest to sign. That way, you get all the legal protections you need without the awkwardness!
Podcast legal documents
The podcast guest agreement is just one of many podcast legal documents a professional podcaster needs.
Learn more about the five essential podcast contracts you need for your podcast in this blog post on the 5 Must-Have Podcast Contracts Every Professional Podcaster Needs.
Are you working with a producer for the production side of your podcast? Then you definitely need to read this blog post on the 5 Key Terms Every Podcast Agreement Between a Podcaster And a Producer Needs to Protect the Podcast(er).
This post was all about the essentials a podcast guest agreement must have for every podcaster interviewing a guest.
You can learn about other key elements every podcast guest agreement needs (for both guests and podcasters) in this blog post on the 9 Key Elements Every Podcast Guest Contract Should Have.
You can learn more about why you need a podcast guest agreement in this blog post on the 3 Key Reasons Every Podcaster and Guest Must Have This Essential Podcast Contract.
You can get your guest release form template separately on this page of my contract shop!
Or, if you want to become a pro, get all your podcast legal documents on this page of my contract shop!
