What do you own when the contract ends?
By default, less than you think. Under US copyright law an independent contractor owns what it creates unless the contract assigns it to you, and a PR agency is a contractor. That default has a name, the work-for-hire rule, and the only reliable fix is a written assignment clause. Without an assignment clause you own three things for certain: whatever you supplied, the coverage already published under your name, and any account registered to your company. The media list, messaging doc, and press kit the agency built on your dime are yours only if the agreement says so.
Sort everything into three buckets:
| What changes hands | Who keeps it |
|---|---|
| Logos, copy, boilerplate, your positioning, every placement published under your name | Yours, no argument |
| The targeted media list, pitch angles, the reporter contact sheet, release drafts, reporting history | Yours only if the contract assigns work product to you |
| The agency's proprietary database, internal templates, the human relationship with a reporter | Theirs, almost always |
The third bucket is the one founders misjudge. A reporter relationship lives in one publicist's head and moves when that person moves, to a new agency or a new job. No clause transfers it, so do not pay extra for language that pretends to. What a clause can transfer is every artifact that relationship produced: the list of who covered you, who passed, and why. That history is what makes your next agency productive in month one instead of month four.
Two moves protect you, and both happen before you sign:
- Get the assignment in writing - one line, "all work product is client property, deliverable on request," in the agreement. The negotiating-the-agreement page covers how to push for it.
- Keep the keys - register the newsroom, wire service, and monitoring accounts to a company email from day one. An agency admin on your account is fine. An agency owner is not.
The term-and-exit page covers how fast you can actually leave: notice periods and wind-down terms. This page's test is simpler: if the agency disappeared tomorrow, could you hand a complete file to their replacement? Agencies that pitch from accounts you control, the way PressFriendly does, pass that test by construction. Anyone can pass it with one clause and a password policy.