Ancillary Rights are the rights in a contract regarding profit received from spin off products such as action figures, posters, CDs, books, T-shirts, video games and even amusement park rides.

Usage

Usually a film’s producers sell the rights—called ancillary rights—to use the film’s characters or images to various manufacturers, and various toys, games, and clothing then appear featuring these characters or images. And for many films, separate musical recordings of the songs in the film’s sound track are produced and sold in record shops.

Ancillary rights can be incredibly lucrative. When we look at films that appeal to children, such as Shrek, The Incredible Hulk, and Spiderman, they have a glut of associated cross promotional products that are profitable in their own right.

Due to the constant evolution of technology and media forms, it can be difficult to predict all the possibilities of ancillary rights associated with a film. As it is, we are seeing more video game products and internet downloads than ever.