Contractor platforms for game studios, compared on IP

Kleos publishes this article and appears in the comparison. Every claim about another platform is quoted from that company's own public pages, with the date it was checked.

A game is not one work. It is engine code, gameplay code, concept art, 3D assets, UI, music, sound effects, voice and text, made by contractors in different countries under different legal regimes.

When a publisher or an acquirer reviews the studio, they do not ask which platform you use. They ask for the document behind each asset, and the platform decides which documents exist.

TL;DR

• One question decides the shape of your chain of title: does the platform sign the agreement with the contractor, or do you? Everything else follows from that.
• Of the six platforms compared here, three publish a position on how intellectual property reaches the client. Three publish nothing on it at all.
• A game has authors and it has performers, and they sit under different regimes. Assigning copyright in a voice recording does not by itself deal with the actor's rights in it.
• Default rules differ by country in ways that do not generalise. An assignment that works in one jurisdiction may be limited to that territory in another.

Why chain of title is harder for a game studio

Chain of title is the unbroken set of documents showing how rights in a work travelled from the person who created it to the company that claims it. For most software companies the chain covers code written by a handful of contractors. For a game studio it covers every asset in the build.

The difficulty is not volume alone. It is that the asset types fall under different rules. Software, artwork, music and recorded performance are treated differently by copyright law in most jurisdictions, and a clause drafted for one does not necessarily work for another.

The second difficulty is time. Studios commission assets years before they need the paperwork. The character art in your storefront screenshot was drawn in 2023 by a freelancer who no longer answers email, and the review asking who owns it happens in 2027.

Not every contributor to a game is an author

Copyright is not the only regime involved. A game brings together authors, whose work is protected by copyright, and performers, whose work sits under a separate category of related rights. Assigning copyright in a recording does not by itself deal with the performer's rights in it.

Five contributors, four regimes, one build.

Asset stores and middleware sit outside all of it. Unity Asset Store items, Epic Marketplace content and audio middleware come with their own licences, which grant use rather than transfer ownership and often carry terms about redistribution and derivative works. A contractor platform does not touch them, and a review will still ask.

The question that decides your chain of title

Who signs the agreement with the contractor. If you sign, the chain has one link and you control the document. If the platform signs, the chain has two links, and the first one is a document written by the platform that you may never have read.

Neither is automatically better. A two-link chain built on agreements a provider maintains per country can be stronger than a one-link chain built on a template you wrote once and never revisited.

The chain is only as good as the document you cannot find.

The two models move risk in opposite directions. If you sign with the contractor, classification exposure and the IP clause stay with you, and so does control over the wording. If the platform signs, the exposure moves to the platform along with the drafting, and you gain a link in the chain you did not write.

Which trade you want depends on how many jurisdictions you are in and whether your legal team wants to own contractor templates.

How IP transfers differ by asset type and country

Default rules vary by jurisdiction and by what was made. One country splits code and art into separate regimes. Another limits an assignment to the territory where it was signed. Six countries means six sets of rules, and they change without notice.

France. Article L121-7 of the Intellectual Property Code restricts a software author's moral rights, while article L121-1 describes other authors' moral rights as perpetual and inalienable. A studio commissioning gameplay code and character art from French contractors is working across two regimes in one country. (As of September 2026.)

United States. A work-for-hire clause does not make a contractor's code a work made for hire. Under 17 U.S.C. § 101 only nine categories of commissioned work qualify, and software is not among them. Ownership moves by assignment instead. (As of September 2026.)

Japan. Article 59 of the Copyright Act states that moral rights belong exclusively to the author and cannot be transferred. Article 15 gives authorship to the company only for works made by employees, so a contractor's work needs an express assignment plus a separate agreement not to exercise moral rights. (As of September 2026.)

Brazil. Article 27 of Law 9.610/98 makes moral rights inalienable and unwaivable. Article 49 goes further on the economic side: assignments are construed restrictively, and unless the contract says otherwise, an assignment is valid only in the country where it was signed. (As of September 2026.)

The six platforms, compared on what they publish about IP

We checked each platform's product, compliance and pricing pages on 11 September 2026 and recorded what each one states about intellectual property. Everything below comes from those pages.

Where an entry says no public statement was found, that describes the pages rather than the product. If you are evaluating any of them, ask for the intellectual property clause in the standard contractor agreement and read it against the country the contractor is in.

Kleos

Kleos operates as a contractor of record, and publishes a three-step model for how rights reach the client.

Who signs with the contractor: Kleos. The hiring company signs a master service agreement with Kleos, and Kleos signs a service agreement with the contractor.

What it publishes about IP: IP assignment is stated as built into every contractor agreement, covering code, designs, models and other work product, with no per-task addendums. The master service agreement mirrors that assignment, so rights run contractor to Kleos to client. Kleos also states that contract terms are tailored to the contractor's location.

What a studio gets: both agreements. The master service agreement is available for download and legal review before signing, and amendments are discussed case by case. Invoices reference named deliverables rather than generic services, which Kleos states is structured for intangible asset recognition under IFRS and IAS 38.

Source: kleos.io/use-cases/ip-transfer, checked 11 September 2026.

Deel

Deel sells contractor management and contractor of record as separate products, and which one you buy decides whether Deel or your company signs with the contractor.

Who signs with the contractor: Deel under its Contractor of Record tier. Under Contractor Management, the hiring company signs.

What it publishes about IP: Deel states that hiring contractors through Deel comes with built-in IP clauses assigning contractor-created work to the company, and that contracts are tailored to regional legal differences. IP assignment is listed among the items covered by the employer-of-record package.

What a studio should check: whether the standard contractor agreement can be amended if your publisher requires specific intellectual property language, and whether the clause differs by the contractor's country.

Source: deel.com/blog/protect-intellectual-property-globally, checked 11 September 2026.

Remote

Remote sells contractor management in three tiers, and which one you buy decides whether Remote or your company signs the agreement with the contractor.

Who signs with the contractor: Remote under its Contractor of Record tier, which starts at $325 per contractor per month. Under Contractor Management at $29 and Contractor Management Plus at $99, the hiring company signs.

What it publishes about IP: Remote publishes a named product, Remote IP Guard, with a two-step transfer model. Rights move from the worker to a Remote local entity, then from that entity to the client. Remote states that it owns legal entities in all countries where it operates, that it does not pass intellectual property to partners, and that the document signed between the worker and its local entity is accessible to clients in its platform.

What a studio should check: the published description of the two-step process refers to employees. IP transfer appears as a feature of the Contractor of Record tier rather than the lower contractor tiers, so a studio with a large freelance roster should price the tier that includes it before assuming coverage.

Sources: remote.com/why-remote/ip-protection, checked 11 September 2026.

TalentDesk

TalentDesk operates as an agent of record, which means the contractor agreement is signed between TalentDesk and the worker rather than between the worker and your company.

Who signs with the contractor: TalentDesk. Its compliance page states that it signs contracts with workers on the client's behalf. Employer-of-record coverage is provided through a partnership with Atlas.

What it publishes about IP: no public statement on IP found on the pages checked. The compliance page describes classification, anti-money-laundering checks and identity verification.

What a studio should check: ask for the intellectual property clause in the standard contractor agreement, and ask whether rights are assigned to TalentDesk first or directly to you.

Source: talentdesk.io/how-it-works/compliance, checked 11 September 2026.

Thera

Thera is a payments and payroll platform rather than a contracting party, so the agreement with the contractor stays between the contractor and your company.

Who signs with the contractor: the hiring company. Thera issues contracts and handles payment.

What it publishes about IP: no public statement on IP found on the pages checked. Thera states that it provides locally compliant contracts and that its contracts protect the business from unnecessary risks.

What a studio should check: since you remain the contracting party, the intellectual property clause is yours to get right. Ask what the standard template says about work product and whether it varies by country.

Source: getthera.com/contractor-management, checked 11 September 2026.

Worksuite

Worksuite operates as an agent of record, which means the contractor agreement is signed between Worksuite and the worker rather than between the worker and your company.

Who signs with the contractor: Worksuite. Its agent-of-record page states that a jurisdiction-specific contractor agreement is generated and executed directly between the worker and Worksuite rather than the client organization, across 190+ jurisdictions and all 50 US states.

What it publishes about IP: no public statement on IP found on the pages checked. Worksuite publishes detail on classification, including a classification engine backed by misclassification indemnification, with coverage applying to engagements run on Worksuite's own contractor agreement templates.

What a studio should check: the indemnification described covers classification. Ask separately what the standard agreement says about work product, and whether there is an onward assignment from Worksuite to you.

Source: worksuite.com/platform/compliance/agent-of-record-services, checked 11 September 2026.

What a publisher or acquirer actually asks for

A publisher or acquirer reviewing a studio asks for the documents behind the assets, rather than the name of the platform that produced them. Typically four things:

1. The agreement with each contributor
2. Evidence that it was signed before the work started
3. The clause covering work product
4. The onward assignment, if a third party sat in the chain

A gap in the chain rarely kills a deal. It reprices it. The buyer's lawyers find contributors with no assignment on file, and the risk moves into the terms: a lower number, or a holdback until the situation is resolved. Neither outcome requires anyone to prove you do not own the work. The absence of the document is enough.

Three questions to put to a platform before signing:

1. Will you receive the agreement it signs with the contractor, or only the one it signs with you?
2. Can the standard agreement be amended if your publisher requires specific language?
3. Does its documentation support recognising the work as an intangible asset, or only expense reconciliation?

A provider that cannot answer the first leaves a link in your chain that you have never read.

How to check your own chain before someone else does

Pick three assets already in the build and trace each one:

1. One piece of code, one piece of art, one audio file
2. For each, find the agreement, the date it was signed, and the clause covering rights
3. Check the clause against the country the contractor was in

A clause waiving moral rights does not do what it says in France or Japan, and an assignment signed in one country may not travel to another.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an agent of record and a contractor of record?

In practice there is none. Worksuite states on its own site that the terms are used interchangeably and that the operational model is the same: a third party signs the contractor agreement, runs classification and pays the contractor, while the client defines the work. The distinction that matters is whether the platform signs with the contractor or you do.

Does using a contractor platform mean you own the work?

Not by itself. Ownership comes from the agreement, and where a platform signs with the contractor there are two agreements in the chain rather than one. Ask to see both, and ask whether the onward assignment to your company is documented.

Does a US-style IP assignment clause work everywhere?

No. In France moral rights are perpetual and inalienable, so a waiver does not take effect. In Japan they cannot be transferred, and the working approach is a separate agreement not to exercise them. In Brazil an assignment is construed restrictively and, unless the contract says otherwise, is valid only in the country where it was signed.

Who owns assets commissioned before the studio started using a platform?

Whoever the original agreement says, or in the absence of an agreement, usually the creator. A platform adopted later does not reach backwards. Those assets need to be identified and papered separately.

What does a publisher check when reviewing chain of title?

Typically the agreement behind each contributed asset, whether it was signed before the work began, what it says about rights in work product, and whether any intermediary sat between the creator and the studio.

Pull three assets out of your current build and see how long it takes to find the agreement behind each one.

Last updated: September 2026.

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