The Advertiser Gave It To Me. Isn’t That Enough?
By Matthew B. Harrison
TALKERS, VP/Associate Publisher
Harrison Legal Group, Senior Partner
Goodphone Communications, Executive Producer
A local advertiser sends over a ready-made commercial. The music is catchy. The script is polished. The production value is surprisingly good for a company that spends most of its day installing garage doors.
The salesperson approves it. Traffic schedules it. The spot airs.
A few months later, somebody else’s lawyer hears it too.
Many media professionals assume that when an advertiser supplies content, the advertiser has already secured whatever permissions are necessary to use it. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t.
If a commercial contains copyrighted music, photographs, video, artwork, or other protected material, the fact that it came from a client does not automatically end the discussion. The advertiser may have obtained the rights. The advertiser may have assumed someone else obtained the rights. The advertiser may never have asked.
Artificial intelligence is creating new versions of the same problem.
Recently, I was asked about a commercial generated almost entirely through AI. The advertiser used one platform to create the script and another to generate the voice. Everything sounded original. No famous song. No movie clip. No obvious red flags.
Yet one question remained:
How do you know the advertiser had the right to use it?
That question can lead in several directions. Did the AI platform permit commercial use? Was the voice modeled after a real person? Does it sound enough like a celebrity to create endorsement concerns? Can the advertiser demonstrate where the content came from and what rights accompany it?
Fortunately, the solution is usually simple. Ask the advertiser.
Most legitimate advertisers are happy to explain how the content was created and what rights they possess. The conversation often takes only a few minutes.
Broadcasters, podcasters, streamers, and digital creators all face the same reality. Before a commercial airs, someone should know where the content came from and whether the necessary rights exist.
The technology may change. The question remains remarkably durable: How do you know you had the right to use this?
Matthew B. Harrison is a media and intellectual property attorney who advises radio hosts, content creators, and creative entrepreneurs. He has written extensively on fair use, AI law, and the future of digital rights. Reach him at Matthew@HarrisonLegalGroup.com or read more at https://harrisonlegalgroup.com.
…I’m sharing promo copy now airing on my client stations, which addresses listeners’ – and advertisers’ — 2026 apprehensions:
The iconic TALKERS conference is coming up this Friday (6/5) and, again, I am looking forward to it. As a practicing therapist and prolific talk show guest for over two decades, I find this unique gathering to be a productive educational and social ritual. It provides an opportunity to make new friends, strengthen existing relationships, and learn new things about the ever-evolving talk media industry. We have similar issues in the mental health field marked by encroaching corporatism in a business once fueled by “mom & pop” operators and independent practitioners.
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Radio has always been about connection, the feeling of belonging to something larger than yourself, of being drawn into a story told by a voice you trust. Perhaps, that’s why you tune in as well. There is little that is more rewarding for us than finding a way to connect you to what you want to hear, whether that’s your favorite jazz station, a particular show, or your former alma mater’s student-run station. It’s why we do what we do, and why we show up for the people who keep those stories alive.
Although I don’t have a machine to play it, I have saved the cart. December 9, 1980, the sad morning-after John Lennon died, Charles Osgood, doleful: “I read the news today. Oh boy.” That morning’s CBS World News Roundup – and on-hour newscasts throughout that day – delivered more moments that would keep you sitting in a parked car at your destination. As they would 3 months later when President Reagan was shot. Then soon again when Pope John Paul II was severely wounded in St. Peter’s Square. And five years yonder, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds into its flight.
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TALKERS magazine associate publisher) Matthew B. Harrison, a work designed for today’s news/talk media environment where audio, video, screenshots, and quotes are not just supporting elements – but serve as the actual content itself. This technique has become particularly prevalent on YouTube and even cable news/talk TV but increasingly appears in audio form as what used to be called “actualities” – sound from another source.
book explains the legal concept of fair use not as a permission structure, but as a legal defense raised after copying has already occurred – an uncomfortable but essential distinction that underpins the entire analysis.
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with the station across town anymore. It’s competing with 50,000 news brands, nearly half a million podcasts, and an infinite scroll of feeds that never sleep.
As a newly minted program director (remember them?), I found the 1980 “NAB Radio Programming Conference” downright enchanting. New-tech cart machines (remember them?) would FIND the splice! And after the cart played, a flashing light saved careless DJs from accidentally playing it again.
In a 
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