The Contract in Pieces

I had not merely let ViralFlare share the hospital video in exchange for a cut of the advertising money. I had accepted a fixed payment in return for the rights to our early viral videos, back when we badly needed cash to buy this house.

The hospital video was no longer mine.

ViralFlare owned it without an end date. The company could license the footage to whoever it chose and for whatever use it saw fit, without coming to me first.

I kept looking at the contract on my screen. My own signature sat at the bottom, as clear as if I had just written it. I had told Maya I would protect her. I had told her I would get her worst memory off the internet.

Now, in the dark, I understood that I had handed it over for good to a business I had no power to command.

Sleep never came.

I stayed beneath the cold glow of my monitors until morning, going through the ViralFlare agreement again and again. I searched for a way out: a loophole, a date when the rights ended, language that might let me challenge the deal.

There was no way out hiding in the pages. The buyout had been properly signed, and its terms gave ViralFlare lasting rights. The hospital vlog was among the videos covered by the agreement.

At eight, I picked up my phone and called David Pierce.

He answered after two rings. “Adam. You’re up early.”

“I got this wrong,” I said. My throat felt raw after hours without speaking. “Five years ago, I thought I was licensing the hospital video for a share of the ad money. I found the original agreement. It was a perpetual buyout to ViralFlare. They own the copyright. I can’t remove it.”

David said nothing for a moment. From his side of the call came a soft wash of traffic.

“You sold permanent rights to a child’s medical trauma?” he asked. His voice held no anger. It had the calm, grave quality of someone naming an illness.

“I didn’t see it that way then. We needed the money. They offered a lump sum for the old videos.”

“Adam, ViralFlare makes its business out of clips. It can cut material from longer videos and sublicense it to other people: advertisers, meme pages, reaction channels. If it owns the rights, it could offer that footage to a pharmaceutical company tomorrow. You wouldn’t be able to stop the deal.”

“I understand,” I said, pressing my palm against my eye. “What can we do?”

“I’ll contact their legal department this morning,” David replied. “I’ll see whether they’ll sell the asset back. But if the video is earning them money, don’t expect them to make this easy. They could demand a staggering amount. And you have to tell Maya.”

“I can’t.”

“You need to,” David said, leaving no room for argument. “I represent her, Adam. If you won’t tell her, I’m obligated to. She thinks you took the video down last night. If she discovers it’s still being circulated by someone else, you’ll destroy what trust she has left in you.”

The call ended.

I went down to the kitchen. Morning light poured across the room, bright enough to make everything look ordinary. Elena stood at the stove, cooking oatmeal. Maya sat at the island in her school clothes, staring at her phone. She looked worn out, though the tension in her shoulders had eased since we’d spoken with David. She believed she had won. She believed the worst was behind her.

I paused in the doorway, my stomach tightening.

“Maya,” I said, keeping my voice low.

She lifted her eyes to me.

“There’s something I need to explain.” I stepped into the kitchen. “I kept my promise last night. I went into the channel and made the hospital video private. No one can view it on our page now.”

Elena turned from the stove and set her spoon down. A small, relieved smile crossed her face, as if I had done what I said without picking another fight.

“But,” I went on, making myself hold Maya’s gaze, “when you were eight, and the channel was just beginning to grow, we made a deal with a company that collects and licenses videos. I sold them some of our older videos for a fixed payment. I didn’t understand that the contract gave them permanent ownership. They still have the hospital footage, and they’re still distributing it.”

The relief fell away from Maya’s face. What replaced it was a blankness that frightened me more than tears would have.

“What are you saying?” Elena asked. Her voice sharpened as she left the stove and came toward the island. “Adam, how can they own it?”

“They hold the copyright,” I said, my voice unsteady. “We don’t. I have no way to make them take it down.”

Maya lowered her eyes to her phone. Its screen had gone dark. She ran her thumb along the rim of the case, without looking at either of us.

“So,” she said, her voice stripped of feeling, “you didn’t just put me on the internet. You sold me to strangers.”