Intellectual property doesn’t begin when a film premieres. It begins much earlier, in the decisions made during development.
There are conversations that nearly every audiovisual project chooses to put off during development. Not because they aren’t important, but because something more urgent always seems to come up first: finishing the script, locking in financing, building the team, preparing for production, or making it to the next funding deadline.
What gets pushed to the back burner has a way of showing up again — right when the project starts gaining traction. When a distribution opportunity appears. When a co-production becomes possible. When a platform comes knocking, a strategic partner surfaces, or a new exhibition window opens up.
There’s a pattern that repeats itself more often than it should: most intellectual property challenges don’t emerge when a film is just getting off the ground. They emerge when it starts to break through.
By that point, the questions that once seemed secondary begin to define the project’s future. Here are seven worth answering before you get there.
1. Who thinks they own the project — and who actually has the authority to make decisions about it?
It’s easy to assume that whoever had the original idea, or whoever is directing, automatically controls everything related to the work. But film and media are collective endeavors. Multiple authors and collaborators shape the final result. During development, that distinction rarely causes problems. Once real business opportunities appear — distribution, expansion, investment — understanding who can actually represent the project and make binding decisions stops being a theoretical conversation and becomes a practical necessity.
2. Is the chain of rights clear from the start, or only when someone asks for it?
Most productions start pulling their documentation together when a call for submissions, a platform, or a potential partner suddenly appears. The problem is that the chain of rights doesn’t begin at that moment. It begins with the first treatment, when third-party materials are incorporated, and when different people start contributing creative elements to the project.
The rise of AI tools has made this conversation even more demanding. Today, it’s not enough to know who created something — you also need to be able to show where the content came from and how it was incorporated into the work.
A clean chain of rights rarely makes headlines when it’s in place. It makes headlines when it isn’t. And at that point, it can mean the difference between seizing an opportunity and watching it slip away.
3. Do you have clearance for everything that's part of the project?
Rights issues don’t always start with the screenplay. Sometimes they start with a song used in a teaser, a photograph dropped into the edit, a piece of art visible in a location shot, or an archive clip downloaded to solve a rough cut problem.
During development, those elements tend to feel like minor details. But once the project starts travelling through festivals, markets, and platforms, every one of them may require clearances that nobody thought to secure at the outset.
What looks like a paperwork issue can quietly become the thing standing between your film and a clean release.
4. Who's going to make the calls when the project starts opening doors?
Most teams spend a lot of energy figuring out how to get the project made. Far fewer stop to define who makes the decisions when a co-producer enters the picture, a platform expresses interest, a sales agent comes on board, or an invitation to an international market arrives.
A project doesn’t start growing only when it starts generating revenue. It starts growing the moment new possibilities for circulation, negotiation, and expansion appear. And that’s exactly when governance stops being an internal matter and starts having real implications for everyone involved.
Picture this: a distributor is ready to close a deal, and every partner believes they have the final say. The conversation shifts from creative to logistical — and the gridlock hits precisely when the project needs to move fastest.
5. Is the project built to travel beyond the shoot?
Solemos asociar el crecimiento de una obra con el éxito comercial, pero en audiovisual el crecimiento puede empezar mucho antes. Una película también crece cuando entra a un festival, encuentra un coproductor, despierta el interés de un distribuidor o empieza a construir una trayectoria internacional.
Cada una de esas oportunidades exige decisiones sobre derechos, representación, autorizaciones y circulación. Prepararse para ese escenario no significa asumir que el proyecto será un éxito inmediato. Significa entender que toda obra necesita una estructura capaz de acompañar las oportunidades que puedan aparecer en el camino.
6. Could a rights issue stop a distribution deal in its tracks?
A lo largo de los años, no ha sido extraño encontrar proyectos con enorme potencial creativo enfrentando obstáculos que no tenían relación con la calidad de la obra. En algunos casos, la dificultad estaba en demostrar la titularidad de determinados derechos o en respaldar la documentación requerida por distribuidores, plataformas o aliados estratégicos.
La película está terminada. El interés existe. Sin embargo, la oportunidad no puede avanzar porque la cadena de derechos no está suficientemente clara.
La creatividad suele abrir la primera puerta. La claridad sobre los derechos determina cuántas puertas más podrán abrirse después.
7. Is intellectual property keeping pace with the project's growth?
Intellectual property isn’t defined in a single contract or resolved with one conversation. It’s built through agreements, clearances, and ongoing decisions that accompany the project from its earliest stages.
These conversations frequently don’t start until the film is already finished. By then, it’s no longer about preventing problems — it’s about untangling situations that could have been avoided during development.
That’s why intellectual property shouldn’t be thought of as a legal checkbox. It’s a production tool. One that allows a project to grow in an organized way, attract partners more easily, and be ready to move when opportunities finally appear.
Stories need more than creativity to grow. They need structures capable of supporting new opportunities, new markets, and new ways of reaching audiences.
Intellectual property shouldn’t be the thing you scramble to figure out when someone asks for the paperwork. It should be part of how a project prepares to grow, find partners, travel, and last.
Because stories don’t grow on the strength of a good idea alone. They grow when creativity and structure move forward together
Studio AYMAC
Production, strategy, and audiovisual project development.
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