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 | Should the fine print be bothering me? Just asking. |
 | @abty888: Good luck!
@ekmisao: If you're not ready to part with the rights to whatever characters you create in your story, as well as the rights to the story itself, it may be best not to submit. The contest's sponsor has, after all, made his terms clear. If you do intend to join, good luck! |
 | There's a bit of concern there. The way the fine print is worded, it means that the company has the right to appropriate your story (in original or edited form) for whatever use, at no additional compensation for you. If they release it in other forms of media - a comic book, a computer game, a feature-length movie - then they are under no obligation to pay you royalties. (This does not seem to extend to characters, however, so lunch boxes and action figures are probably out of the question.)
What worries me, however, is that the fine print is directed at submissions and not specifically at the contest winner/s. That means that they can literally use any or all of the stories they receive in the above fashion, possibly coming out with their own versions of such stories.
The sparse legal text also implies that the fine print was cut-and-pasted from somewhere else, though, and I'm hoping that that's actually the case. In any event, it mentions that entrants must be of legal age to join, yet doesn't define that "legal age" anywhere.
The good news, however, is that submission doesn't cover exclusivity of the work, so you're free to submit it to other publishing venues even after this contest. |
| Thanks for explaining these terms in more detail, lengthofwords. Please read his comment, folks, to get more insight into the contest's terms, so that if you do join, you do so with full knowledge of how it's being run. TY! |
| FAQ says:
This contest requires that you grant me a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual use of your story so I may use the story along with my art (since I won't be able to separate my art from your writing when all is done) in any manner I see fit.
I understand his point...but like lengthofwords said, the illustrator can then take any of the stories and use them as prompts. I don't think he's being shady, but one of his writer friends should tell him that the legalese is getting people a bit worried. |
| TY, ekmisao. I'll email The Bibliophile Stalker, from whom I first heard of the contest, about this. Maybe he knows the contest's sponsor and can contact him. |
 | I don't think he's being shady either, but the comments here did make me rethink everything. I'll await word about this. :) |
| I emailed The Bibliophile Stalker, and he emailed me back his thoughts. We think the best way to go about this is to query over at the sponsor's site. There is an email address and a FAQ at the bottom of the page on his site announcing the contest. It would be best to direct your polite concerns there. I'm quite sure that the sponsor is putting up this contest for pure and honest reasons. In any case, it's a matter of reading his terms, and being willing to join if one accepts them. Since he's the sponsor, he can put up the terms he can work best with, and it's up to the writer if he/she accepts those terms and joins. Good luck to those who do! If you do win, you're going to get your story magnificently illustrated by the sponsor! |
 | abty888 wrote on Dec 10, '08, edited on Dec 10, '08  the best way to go about this is to query over at the sponsor's site. There is an email address and a FAQ at the bottom of the page  Another thing that bothers me is their email address. It's dummy@homanga.net. Is there an inside joke somewhere? Why assign "dummy" in an email address?
Thanks lengthofwords for posting your concerns regarding "the find print." |
| Hi, abty888. I'm fairly sure that the sponsor is okay. The layout editor of PGS knows him, I think. Maybe his email address is just for fun. No harm in querying, anyway. |
 | So they get to edit/use/print your story at their discretion? Doesn't seem to bad. |
 | haiandlow wrote on Dec 11, '08, edited on Dec 11, '08 Hi there everyone! I'm the creator of By Moon Alone and pretty much the culprit for this mess. Yeah, I know the fine print sounds pretty evil and believe me, I've actually made every effort to make it as shady and diabolical as I can. For 2 pretty good reasons:
1. I'll be illustrating the winning entry and it would be an incredible time/effort investment on my part. And once that's done, it would be impossible for me to separate the art from the story. So I'd obviously want the rights to do with it as I please without having to check on the writer for every little decision that needs to be done later on. To be fair, the winning writer can do what he please with the story+art as well.
2. The blanket statement of handing over certain rights to me for all submissions is a way to safeguard myself and the writer. It doesn't mean I have any intention of stealing people's stories. It just means that it's possible I may already have similar ideas to some of the submissions and I don't want to be accused of stealing ideas. It also means I might like the runner-up enough to illustrate it later on. And in order for that to happen, I'll have to edit and rewrite the story to make it work as a comic.
So in a nutshell, if you have any doubts in entering the contest, please don't submit. But if you have an awesome story that might have a chance of winning and you believe the risks may be worth it for this very rare opportunity, then I'd love to read your story. I greatly discourage paranoid writers from entering.
If you have more questions regarding the contest, my email is dummy@homanga.net.
Cheers!
HAI! |
| @haiandlow: Thanks very much for taking the time, Hai, to explain.
There you go, folks. Hai is clear with what he wants. Like I said earlier, if any of the terms don't feel comfortable to you, you don't need to join. I repeat that I think the sponsor is putting up this contest for pure and honest reasons. To those of you who decide to join, good luck! |
| Thanks for the clarification, Hai. |
| Like I said, I do understand where he's coming from, and the explanation helps a lot. I suppose he ultimately plans to do this, like most comics: (Story: AUTHOR, Art/Execution: HAI). And that's all he has in mind.
We hope he does get the submissions he wants to get. ^^v |
| haiandlow wrote on Dec 12, '08, edited on Dec 12, '08 Thanks guys, once again this is all pretty much just for fun, but I'd like to be careful just in case. We live in interesting times after all. And I welcome all submissions from readers of PGS. If you have an extra 2000 words in you, there's no better way to unleash it than in the form of a dragon! |
Comment deleted at the request of the author. Comment deleted at the request of the author. |
