What’s Normal?

“What does a contract normally say?”

We hear this question often, and we answer it every time. We know the standard royalty structures for your industry. We know which provisions are typical, which are negotiable, and which the other side inserts hoping you won’t push back. We can tell you exactly what’s normal.

Then we’ll tell you why it doesn’t matter.

In a contract negotiation, “normal” almost always reflects what benefits the more powerful party—the entity with more money, more lawyers, and more experience extracting favorable terms from people who don’t know they can ask for something different. Corporations, universities, collectors, galleries, and institutions didn’t accumulate that power by routinely offering the other side terms that weren’t in their own interest. “Normal” is the sediment of a thousand prior negotiations they won.

Which means normal is a floor, not a ceiling. The more powerful party has the resources to do better than normal any time they choose. The question is whether you ask.

When the other side tells you a provision is standard, that’s useful information—it tells you what they’re used to getting. It is not a legal argument, and it is not a reason to sign.

When someone applies pressure with promises about the future—“we’ll revisit this next year,” “we’re working on a better template,” “this is just how it works for now”—treat it as a distraction. This contract governs this work. Hypothetical future improvements to terms that haven’t been offered yet are not concessions. They are a way to close the conversation.

What’s in front of you is what matters.

My Southern grandmother used the word “common” as an insult. Not a mild one. Common, in her usage, described a person devoid of manners and taste—someone who didn’t know how to act right. But she was also clear that ignorance is only an excuse once. After you’ve been told what’s right, you’re responsible for doing it.

Our first approach in any negotiation is to assume the other side doesn’t fully understand what they’re asking for—that the clause is inherited, unexamined, inserted by habit rather than intention. That assumption allows us to open the conversation without hostility and explain, precisely, what a fair provision looks like and why. Most counterparties, given the chance to do better, will.

The ones who won’t, after being told what’s right, are telling you something important about the relationship you’re about to enter.

We’re not interested in what’s normal. We’re interested in what the contract should say given the specific work, the specific relationship, and the specific leverage you have—which is usually more than you think. Fair deals exist in creative industries. They’re just rarely the first draft.

If you’re looking at a contract that doesn’t reflect what you’re actually bringing to the table, [schedule a consultation]. We’ll tell you what’s normal, what’s negotiable, and what to ask for instead.