Who owns the content you pay an agency to create?

Paying an agency for content does not, by itself, make you the copyright owner. Under US copyright law, copyright in a work initially belongs to the author who created it, and Copyright Office guidance says a transfer of copyright generally must be made in writing and signed by the owner of the rights. Read your contract for that transfer language, and ask your attorney whether it covers everything you expect to keep.

Most owners assume the invoice settles it. Often the agreement does say the client owns the finished work. Trouble shows up in the gaps: the research that shaped the pages, the voice guidance, unpublished drafts, images licensed in the agency's name, or wording that lets the agency reuse your content elsewhere.

This is general information for business owners, not legal advice. Copyright questions turn on the facts and the exact contract language, and the U.S. Copyright Office itself says it cannot provide legal advice about the status of a work. Take specific questions to your own attorney. If your question is about the website itself, meaning the domain, hosting and site files, see whether you own your website or are renting it.

What the Copyright Office says about authors and transfers

The Copyright Office's Circular 1, Copyright Basics, says the copyright in a work initially belongs to the author or authors who created it. When a work is made for hire, the party that hired the individual is considered the author and copyright owner instead. Circular 1 also says a transfer of copyright generally must be made in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed, while transferring a right on a nonexclusive basis does not require a written agreement.

That last distinction matters for content buyers. Owning the rights and having permission to use the work are different things, and a business can hold the second while believing it holds the first. Whether your agreement transfers the copyright or only grants a license is a question your attorney can answer from the actual wording.

Why a work-for-hire label may not settle it

Many agency contracts call the content a work made for hire. Circular 30 explains that a work counts as made for hire in two situations: an employee prepares it within the scope of employment, or it is specially ordered or commissioned, falls within one of nine listed categories, and the parties expressly agree in a written instrument they sign that it is a work made for hire. The nine categories are a contribution to a collective work, part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, a translation, a supplementary work, a compilation, an instructional text, a test, answer material for a test, and an atlas.

Circular 30 says that if a work fails to satisfy any of these requirements, it is not a work made for hire. Whether a set of articles or service pages fits any of those categories is a legal question. Ask your attorney whether your agreement also contains a written transfer of rights that would apply if the work-for-hire label does not.

What to check beyond the published pages

Published articles are the obvious asset. A content engagement can produce several others, and each deserves a line in the agreement. Look for the list of deliverables in the signed agreement itself, not only in the proposal, because a proposal may not be part of the contract.

The material you supplied deserves its own look. Circular 1 lists ideas, procedures, methods, systems and processes among the things copyright does not protect, so the way your business works is a different thing from the written description of it. The substance of good content comes from your business: your process, your explanations, your answers to customer questions. A writer should not have to invent what your business already knows, and you should not end up asking permission to reuse your own explanations.

AI-assisted content and human authorship

If an agency uses AI tools in drafting, there is a further wrinkle. The Copyright Office's registration guidance on works containing material generated by artificial intelligence, published March 16, 2023, says copyright can protect only material that is the product of human creativity. The same guidance says a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way, or modify it enough, for those human contributions to be protected, and that applicants have a duty to disclose AI-generated content in a work submitted for registration. The Office has kept publishing on the subject since then, including a report on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI, published January 29, 2025, so check its Copyright and Artificial Intelligence page for the current position before relying on any one document.

For a buyer, the practical point is knowing how your content is made. Before signing, put a direct question to the agency: "Which parts of this will be drafted by a tool, and what will a person write, select or change?" If registration or enforcement matters to your business, bring the answer to your attorney. The guidance addresses registration with the Copyright Office; what an agency tells its own clients about tool use is a matter for your agreement.

A fictional example: the agency changes hands

A fictional accounting firm in Pennsylvania paid an agency for two years of articles. Its agreement said the firm could use all deliverables on its website. When the agency was sold, the new owner asked the firm to remove the articles or sign a new license. The firm's attorney found no transfer language anywhere, so the firm held permission rather than ownership, and the articles described its own onboarding process for small business clients in words it now needed permission to keep using.

A second fictional firm had the opposite experience. Its agreement transferred the copyright in all delivered content, listed the research and style guide as deliverables, and required stock images to be licensed in the firm's name. When that firm changed providers, it took everything with it.

How Hudson South handles ownership

Hudson South's AI search content work publishes pages and posts to the client's own site after the client reviews them. On a project, the client keeps everything, including the Twenty-One profile, the written specification of how the business sounds. On a retainer, the Twenty-One profile is refined against the first three months of published work, then handed over. Whatever provider you choose, including Hudson South, read the ownership terms in the written agreement and have your attorney review them. What to collect when a project wraps up is covered in what happens after a content project ends.

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Sources

1. Copyright Basics (Circular 1). U.S. Copyright Office. Read 2026-10-17.
2. Works Made for Hire (Circular 30). U.S. Copyright Office. Read 2026-10-17.
3. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence. U.S. Copyright Office. Read 2026-10-17.
4. Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. U.S. Copyright Office. Read 2026-10-17.