Using creator videos on your Shopify store: the permission to get before you post

A creator posts a video of your product. It is better than anything you shot yourself, they tagged you, and you want it on the product page by this afternoon.

Being tagged is not permission. The video belongs to the person who made it, and putting it on your store is a different use from the one they agreed to when they posted it. This is the step most stores skip, and the one that turns into a takedown email six months later.

What follows is a practical checklist, not legal advice. If you work with creators at volume, have a lawyer turn it into a template once.

The creator owns the video

The US Copyright Office's Copyright Basics states it plainly: copyright exists automatically from the moment a work is fixed, and it initially belongs to the author who created it. A creator who films your product on their phone owns that footage the moment they stop recording.

The same circular describes the narrow exception. A work is "made for hire" only when an employee makes it as part of their job, or when there is an express written agreement and the work falls into a short list of categories. A creator you sent free product to is usually neither. If you paid for a video and want to own it outright, that has to be agreed in writing at the start.

For most stores the realistic goal is a license, not ownership: written permission to use specific videos in specific places for a specific time.

The platforms do not grant it for them

Posting on TikTok or Instagram does not hand brands a license to reuse the video.

TikTok's terms of service prohibit using another user's content for commercial purposes unless that user permits it. A product page is a commercial purpose.

Instagram's embed is the closest thing to a built-in permission, because it keeps the post on Instagram's player and the creator can switch embedding off whenever they like. Downloading the file and hosting it on your store is a different act, and nothing in the embed feature covers it.

The soundtrack is a second rights holder

The creator can license their footage. They usually cannot license the music under it.

TikTok's Commercial Music Library terms say videos using those sounds may be shared only within TikTok, and commercial uses outside of TikTok are not permitted. Meta's Music Guidelines prohibit using music for commercial or non-personal purposes without the appropriate licenses. Either way, a popular track under a creator's video does not travel with it to your store.

Ask for a version with original sound or a voiceover. Creators often have one, and it is the version that is actually usable.

What to get in writing

A reply to an email that answers each of these is far better than a "sure, go for it!" in DMs. You want a record you can find in a year.

1. Which videos, by link. A license to "your content" is too vague to rely on.
2. Where you will use them. Your store's product pages, your homepage, your emails, and paid ads are separate asks. Paid ads are where creators most often want a higher fee.
3. How long, and what happens at the end. A fixed term with a takedown window is easier to agree than "forever".
4. What edits you can make. Trimming, cropping to vertical, adding captions, and swapping the audio are all edits. Say so.
5. Whether the audio is cleared, or whether they can send a version without the music.
6. Whether everyone visible in the video agreed. The creator can license their own footage. A friend in the background has their own say over their face.
7. What you are giving in return, if anything. Money, free product, store credit, or nothing. This matters for the next section.
8. How they want to be credited, if at all. Some want their handle shown. Some would rather not.

The FTC part

If there is a connection between you and the creator, the FTC expects it to be disclosed. Its Endorsement Guides FAQ says that receiving free products or other perks with the expectation of promoting them brings a post under the FTC Act, and that the connection should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. The underlying rules are the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, 16 CFR Part 255.

Three points from that guidance apply directly once the video is on your store.

The endorsement has to reflect the creator's honest opinion and experience. Trimming is fine. Editing so they appear to say something they did not is not.

The FAQ is explicit that the advertiser carries responsibility too: "Your company is ultimately responsible for what others do on your behalf." On your product page, you are the advertiser.

For video, the FTC's guidance for influencers says the disclosure belongs in the video and not just in the description. If the creator's disclosure was in the caption on TikTok, the caption did not come with the file. A short line on the video or next to it, such as "We sent this creator the product for free", travels with the video wherever you put it.

If a creator bought your product with their own money and posted about it before you ever spoke, there was no connection when they made the video. Paying them afterwards to license it is a different situation from paying them to make it. The FAQ is the place to check your own case.

Keep the record next to the file

Six months on, the question is never "did we ask?" It is "where is that email, and what did it cover?" Keep the agreement where the video lives: the link, the date, the scope, the end date, and the version of the audio you were given.

You also need to be able to remove a video everywhere at once. A video uploaded separately into three product galleries and a homepage section has to be found and removed in four places.

What Maxproof does

Maxproof's URL import takes a public TikTok or Instagram link, one at a time, and stores a copy of the video in your store's Shopify Files. The Import button stays disabled until you tick a box stating that you own the content or have permission from its owner to import and use it. When you import, Maxproof records your store, the source URL, and the time. That is a record that you said you had permission. It is not the permission itself, which is still the creator's to give.

If the creator sends you a version with cleared audio, upload that file directly. Maxproof takes MP4 or MOV up to 200MB.

Each video is one item in your Maxproof media library, used by every widget it sits in. Deleting it there deletes the file from your Shopify Files and removes it from every widget, so a takedown request is one action.

One plan, $10 a month or $100 a year, every feature included. We never bill by views. Cancel any time and the unused time is credited back to your Shopify bill.