Legalize this!

[ragnorakk]

So what are the main points of contributor/magazine agreement then?

1. All submissions remain the property and responsibility of submitter.
2. Nothing is printed without (correct) attribution
3. Trollzine gains rights only to print in original form, but retains those rights in perpetuity. Any further use would require explicit permission of author/artist.

Any glaring omissions or points I'm leaving out? I'll edit this post to reflect improvements so we can have a 'statement'.

[Aramis of Erak]

1) The submitter asserts that he/she holds, unencumbered copyright to the submission
2) The submitters retain copyright on the original work submitted; the publisher is granted derivative work copyright to the compilation and form in which it appears.
3) The publishers obtain the right to perpetual non-transferrable royalty-free use of the submission in a single product.
4) The publishers may not substantially change the text of submissions without explicit consent to the changes.
5) The publishers accept no responsibility for misrepresentation by submitters
6) Submitter asserts that he/she has unencumbered right to license the material used
7) Submitter agrees to hold harmless the publisher for use of the material.
8) Submitter agrees to pay all legal costs incurred as a result of their submission not being unencumbered and/or violating someone else's intellectual property rights.
9) Submitters sole right to compensation shall be a single copy of the prodcuct containing the item used in each form released.
10) Items may be reused in new products by the publishers obtaining permission via written or electronic text; again, only getting a copy of the resulting product.

Note: I am NOT a lawyer. But those are the terms I've seen in other fanzines. Such an agreement also means some up front expenses, to wit, PoD versions mean each submitter gets a copy.

Also note item 8: this is the "If I'm a schmuck, stick it to me, not the publisher."

[zanshin]

They look good.

I am fairly sure that we are producing all original material here. Thank you Aramis.

I have no budget to send people issues other than an emailed pdf, but as we are talking a free to download fanzine, that shouldn't be an issue.

[cartomancer]

Well that covers point 9 as far as i'm concerned. Admitadly, if any of my work were to be used in any larger publication i would like to receive a copy but, as i know we're working at this as a labour of love and, our agreement with Rick and Ken was not to turn a profit i'd never expect anyone to fork out and pay for me to have a copy.

That aside though, i don't think we want to get too bogged down in legalities as that only complicates issues. All we really need to all agree to is that...

The writing remains the sole property of the author and, any publication outside of Trollzine must request and, receive explicit written permission to publish it elsewhere.

The author accepts sole responsibility for the content they submit to Trollzine and, Trollzine will not be held accountable for work of it's contributors

Infringement of either of the above two items may lead to criminal prosecution in cases where a profit is made.

The authors agree to all of the above items upon the submission of any item to Trollzine.

... Or something to that effect.

[ragnorakk]

Jan 11, 2010 7:03:10 GMT -5 cartomancer said:

That aside though, i don't think we want to get too bogged down in legalities as that only complicates issues. All we really need to all agree to is that...

The writing remains the sole property of the author and, any publication outside of Trollzine must request and, receive explicit written permission to publish it elsewhere.

The author accepts sole responsibility for the content they submit to Trollzine and, Trollzine will not be held accountable for work of it's contributors

Infringement of either of the above two items may lead to criminal prosecution in cases where a profit is made.

The authors agree to all of the above items upon the submission of any item to Trollzine.

... Or something to that effect.

Not too bogged down - but now is the time to establish things very clearly, identify boundary conditions before they occur and such - and it's certainly not a requirement for anyone - just a personal bugaboo I'd like to see very clearly established. I'd like to be able to be able to word it well - to be easily understood, so that people aren't intimidated by it...

[cartomancer]

Jan 11, 2010 9:17:06 GMT -5 ragnorakk said:

Jan 11, 2010 7:03:10 GMT -5 cartomancer said:

That aside though, i don't think we want to get too bogged down in legalities as that only complicates issues. All we really need to all agree to is that...

The writing remains the sole property of the author and, any publication outside of Trollzine must request and, receive explicit written permission to publish it elsewhere.

The author accepts sole responsibility for the content they submit to Trollzine and, Trollzine will not be held accountable for work of it's contributors

Infringement of either of the above two items may lead to criminal prosecution in cases where a profit is made.

The authors agree to all of the above items upon the submission of any item to Trollzine.

... Or something to that effect.

Not too bogged down - but now is the time to establish things very clearly, identify boundary conditions before they occur and such - and it's certainly not a requirement for anyone - just a personal bugaboo I'd like to see very clearly established. I'd like to be able to be able to word it well - to be easily understood, so that people aren't intimidated by it...

I agree that now is certainly the time to do this and, i can understand why you'd want things to be clear (life is just easier when you know the rules is my guess). I'm also fully behind you that we don't want to intimidate any budding contributers out there and, it's my personal opioion that too many rules or, legal jargon might do this.

I guess all we really want is not to get screwed by another Shipmanesque incident and, to that ends all we need really say is that the work remains our own IP and we're happy for it to be published in Trollzine (and only Trollzine unless we give written permission to any other effect).

The other point was that whilst i trust no-one here will be ripping off the work of anyone else, should it happen, it's the individuals and not the zines fault as the editors cant be expected to have read every role-playing resource under the sun.

So with protecting ourselves and the zine out of the way, what other points do we need to cover??

[zanshin]

I propose to use the format Aramis set out and will be mailing all contributors accordingly, please respond to the mail so we can use your stuff!

[zanshin]

What clauses are the particular sticking point for you kopf?

If i take yours as a starting point, how do i guarantee that the material i am using is not plagiarised.

Not trying to rip anyone off here and willing to learn from those who are experienced. I would rather not be abused though.

[koraq]

Guys, scale back!

No need to be so d**n lengthy. This have worked in the past:

Our authors and artists own all their own work. Fight On! only asks for the right to print your work in the issue it's originally published in, in perpetuity. Authors and artists own all other rights and me re-use and resell their work as they see fit.

Add this:

By submitting material for publication you take responsibility for getting the permissions to publishing it, and any liability thereof and fees for permissions are covered by the submitter

[zanshin]

Thats helpful advice, thanks koraq.

I have sent the long list out to contributors and most have returned it saying ok, though at least 1 had concerns. There is clearly a learning curve here and i welcome constructive criticism.

[mgtremaine]

Jan 27, 2010 2:33:26 GMT -5 kopf said:

[
Zanshin, if what I read above is what you're on about, you're a mouthpiece for people who have sought to steal the works of others in T&T for a few years now.

This is not terribly helpful and makes it seem like something strange is going on, which I do not think is the case. I think this process has been fairly transparent, we a bunch of inexperienced fans what to put out a zine. After being sadden by the whole "that company" experience we are trying to "get it right". If you have better verbiage please consider helping out with that. You are one of the few people here who has publishing experience and as such we'd all love to benefit from your wisdom. I think that about covers the intent and desire of the zine proponents.

-Mike

[zanshin]

Thank you mgtremaine that is an excellent summary

The one person who had concerns (so far) has responded with a list of conditions they feel appropriate for the use of their material, which includes reciprocal guarantees for the copyright and the explicit release to use the material in this copy of the Zine only, an agreement i have readily acceded to. If anyone who has signed up so far has retrospective concerns please email me , my only aim is for a quality, legal , free product that will promote T&T and bring the IMO excellent contributions to a wider audience.

I will set out below the proposed blanket statement for the contents page which i hope will put minds at rest

'All works contained in this magazine remain the copyright of the individual authors and artists. They have given permission for their work to be published within Trollszine on a not for profit basis. The items within cannot be reproduced elsewhere without the express permission of the individual author or artist. You may freely print off the items within for your personal enjoyment, and we hope you do!'

[cartomancer]

Jan 27, 2010 13:56:53 GMT -5 zanshin said:

Thank you mgtremaine that is an excellent summary

The one person who had concerns (so far) has responded with a list of conditions they feel appropriate for the use of their material, which includes reciprocal guarantees for the copyright and the explicit release to use the material in this copy of the Zine only, an agreement i have readily acceded to. If anyone who has signed up so far has retrospective concerns please email me , my only aim is for a quality, legal , free product that will promote T&T and bring the IMO excellent contributions to a wider audience.

I will set out below the proposed blanket statement for the contents page which i hope will put minds at rest

'All works contained in this magazine remain the copyright of the individual authors and artists. They have given permission for their work to be published within Trollszine on a not for profit basis. The items within cannot be reproduced elsewhere without the express permission of the individual author or artist. You may freely print off the items within for your personal enjoyment, and we hope you do!'

Sounds good to me!

[Hogscape]

I think it's a given that 'first publication rights' means that the publisher owns the right to publish the material 'first'.

To me that indicates that the right expires as soon as the publisher uses that piece.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for a magazine and they sent me a contract saying words to the effect of: 'we might publish this, we might not. We will take an option on the material for 18 months, during this time, we might publish it but either way, you can't shop it around any other publisher, we retain 'first rights'.

Not very fair but that's life I guess.

But that's besides the point really. If someone (anyone) wanted to download a free copy of TrollsZine, cut and paste an article into their own publication or website and call it there own. We can't stop them. We could maybe sue them but who can afford that?

In many fan publications (going back to the 80s here) I have seen the line: 'all material remains the property of the author/artist' - that seems like a fair statement to make.

TrollsZine is a free publication put together by a bunch of interested parties contributing their time for free and producing a product that exists only in the aether until someone wants to download it. I can't see how TrollsZine actually owns anything.

[kopf]

Here's how it works in the "non-suing world." If a publisher pays for whatever contribution they may indeed impose whatever contract they deem fit, the authors agree to this by acceptance of payment. An author does not loose control of his work by submitting anything. There are guidelines as for how long an author should wait from a place that he submitted to before submitting elsewhere.

With a fanzine, as we have already seen, the publishers are often not around long enough to protect any claims, with or without pay, on authors' material being reprinted elsewhere. The author usually restores his material right to his contribution by re-submitting in a few months or years to other outlets, agreed usage of piece pending its acceptance there. Other publishers adopting the material does not give them control of said work, it does though erode the author's claim to future recompense for that piece of work.

Jan 31, 2010 8:24:24 GMT -5 Hogscape said:

I think it's a given that 'first publication rights' means that the publisher owns the right to publish the material 'first'.

To me that indicates that the right expires as soon as the publisher uses that piece.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for a magazine and they sent me a contract saying words to the effect of: 'we might publish this, we might not. We will take an option on the material for 18 months, during this time, we might publish it but either way, you can't shop it around any other publisher, we retain 'first rights'.

Not very fair but that's life I guess.

But that's besides the point really. If someone (anyone) wanted to download a free copy of TrollsZine, cut and paste an article into their own publication or website and call it there own. We can't stop them. We could maybe sue them but who can afford that?

In many fan publications (going back to the 80s here) I have seen the line: 'all material remains the property of the author/artist' - that seems like a fair statement to make.

TrollsZine is a free publication put together by a bunch of interested parties contributing their time for free and producing a product that exists only in the aether until someone wants to download it. I can't see how TrollsZine actually owns anything.