Observation deals are beginning to look less like simple access agreements and more like custody frameworks.
Newer contracts increasingly specify who can touch raw output, when derived products can be copied, how reserve-window material is separated, and what happens if a third party later asserts public-interest claims over the same capture. These clauses are not legal decoration. They are the contract layer catching up to the political value of the imagery itself.
The shift is important because it turns sensor markets into evidence markets. Once custody terms move into the contract core, operators are no longer just selling minutes of access. They are selling controlled legitimacy around what the resulting images are allowed to become.