Disclaimer
I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. This is for educational purposes only. The very minimal sections taken from this contract are being used under the Fair Use Act, which covers criticism, commentary, and educational uses of written work.
If the agency whose contract is sampled in this post wishes the samples to be taken down (and replaced with re-written summaries), please use our contact form, verify your identity and ownership of this agency, and we’ll take the images down immediately.
Predatory Contracts – Term and Termination
If you didn’t read this post first, there’s context that you might want in there. So maybe go read that before continuing here. But you’re an adult, so you do what you want. I can’t stop you.
The big daddy (no, not a sexy daddy) of OnlyFans management agency contract predatory behavior is the term of the contract, and how that contract is renewed. There’s also little sub-headings in this arena that we need to look at (like how to get out of a contract), so we’ll be touching on those as well.
Because this post is for educational and critical purposes and we at BonerGhosts believe in learning through real example, we will be showing you an actual contract from an actual (unnamed) agency.
This is an odd extension of a contract, buried in the “compensation” section of this contract. Essentially, the contract will automatically renew after the original term (which comes later in the contract) for another year if the model’s revenue goes up by 50%, unless the company chooses not to renew (the model has no say).
The problem we have here is that many of these agencies take on models whose earnings are… nothing. $500 a month or less. They’re absolutely new, they don’t know how bad an agency can be. For an established agency with a proven social media strategy and current models who they can use to promote their new models… getting a page to $1000 a month is nothing. The newbie will be locked into this agency for two years, pretty much immediately.
This agency’s base contract is for one year. Please imagine, if you would, agreeing to be in an one-year romantic relationship with someone before you’ve ever spent time with them. Imagine you’re living together. For a year. That’s this, except they’re in charge of your income.
The other thing in here that I’ve never seen before and I personally find nefarious is the automatic extension of the contract by YEARS based on revenue. Now, you might be a person who does not care at all what happens to your image, your brand, your (working) sex life–as long as the money is good. Which then, yes, this is the agency for you. If you’re like “I will stream 24/7/365 and put whatever anyone wants in any of my orifices and fuck whoever I’m told to fuck, just gimme that fat 1MIL” this is great. (Zero judgement here, money is important, and if you’re comfortable then you’re good.)
But if you want more control over your life and your brand and maybe you don’t like what this agency is doing with either and you want to be chill and run things yourself? You can’t. You’re locked in.
Okay, the last bit. Termination. How to get out of this contract.
The agency can terminate at any time for any reason with no notice, with no payment to the model for sudden lost income.
The model, on the other hand, can only terminate if there is a material breach of the contract, they have to send a physical, certified letter to an address provided in this contract, giving 90 days notice. Then the company is allowed 30 days from receiving that notice to fix the issue. If they do, the model cannot get out of the contract.
But what if the management agency can’t fix the breach? Or won’t?
The model can terminate but they have to pay whatever the highest amount of money the agency expected to make off their page if the contract went the length of the term. Immediately.
But, don’t worry, there’s a handy way to figure this out in section 12.b.
Let’s ignore that 6.f mention, as this educational post is solely about termination.
If a model is locked in for a 12 month contract and a material breach of the contract occurs by the agency (meaning that they DEEPLY violated the contract in an impactful way–so the agency did something bad) and the model does the 90 day notice by certified mail and the agency does not fix the breach, the model still has to pay to exit the contract.
How much? If the model’s highest earnings were $10K a month and, for ease of math, the agency was entitled to $5K of that each month, the model would immediately have to pay the agency $50K ($5K x 10 remaining months) upon termination of the contract, even though the agency was the one that violated the contract.
If, somehow, the model paid that amount and got a new agency or hired an assistant and she ended up making more than $10K a month during the ten months that the agency would have been running her page, the model would have to pay the agency MORE, based on the actual earnings numbers.
Final Thoughts
I hope this post gave you a little more understanding of how to read contracts and what to look for in them. It is hard to read contracts, much less understand them. They are dense, they are full of legalese, they are not friendly to people who never went to law school (me!). But it is deeply worth learning how to read them or hiring someone to check them for you. (I recommend using ContractsCounsel for contract review, we found our lawyer through there and he’s great.)
If you have found yourself stuck in a contract like this one, please check our Resources section for links to law firms with experience getting out of these deeply unethical contracts.
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