Business & Work

Starting on July 1, 2024, if you're younger than 16 and your family or someone else makes videos and puts them online to make money, you may need to be paid some of that money. Examples could include videos with children on a family YouTube or TikTok channel and sponsored posts on Instagram.

Who should be paid?

To get paid for being in these videos, you need to meet all the following requirements:

• You're under the age of 16,
• At least 30% of the videos made by the vlogger in a 30-day, period include you, your name, photograph, or your likeness (for example, a drawing or cartoon of you), and
• The videos made some money.

For example, if your family made 10 hours of videos that made money last month and you were in at least 3 hours of them, you may need to be paid.

This law doesn’t apply if you make the videos yourself. So, if you run your own vlog (like on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram) and get all the money, you would not qualify. You can only qualify if someone else in your family is making and posting the videos, and you meet the other criteria. Also, the vlog performance must have been in Illinois.

How much should you get paid?

If you meet the requirements above, a portion of the money the videos made must be set aside for you. The amount should match the percentage of the video that includes you.

For example, if you appear in half of a video, half of the money the video makes must be set aside for you. If a 3-hour video made $90 and you appear in 1 hour of it, you appear in about one-third of the video. That means about $30 must be set aside for you.

If more than one child under 16 appears in the same video, the money set aside for that portion of the video must be split equally between the children who appear in it.

How should you get paid?

If you meet the above requirements, the vlogger, or video creator, must:

• Set up a trust account to save your money. The money should only be available to you when you reach the age of 18.
• Keep certain records, including:
  • your name and age,
  • the number of videos that made money,
  • the total minutes of videos that made money,
  • the total minutes you were featured in vlogs,  
  • the total compensation Payment for work done or damage suffered generated, and
  • the amount deposited into the trust account for you.

What to do if the video maker refuses to pay

If the person refuses to pay you by saving your share of the money in a trust account, you can sue them. For more help, visit our Get Legal Help tool.