Leaving for A-Kon 19!

[doronjosama]

Two things:

Thing One: we are leaving for A-Kon today in about an hour or so! Thus, I will have little to no internet access until we come home on Monday. I don't believe the con hotel has free internet in the rooms or anything, so I will be incommunicado until I can get home to my own internets.

Thus, DO NOT PANIC if you can't get in touch with me during this time period. I will return!

Thing Two: divalea broke the story about TokyoPop's HEINOUS new "contract" for new creators- one that finally pulls away the mask and reveals that yes, they want all rights to your intellectual property and yes, they're willing to patronize and manipulate unwitting talent into giving up those rights. They even want you to give up your moral rights to your work! And hey, it's all written in hip, snappy lingo so as to be "down" with the kids. See, they're not evil, they're fun guys! Fun guys who want all your rights, is all!

THIS IS A BAD THING. Creators should always control their rights! ALWAYS. We creators should not be so desperate to get published that we lose the right to control the things we make. The history of the industry is littered with tales of people who ended up with nothing while large corporations reaped the benefits of their hard work. Many creators died before they were able to regain their rights to the things they created. Terrible deals like this one have existed in comics in every decade, and now, despite the Creators' Rights movements in the 1980's and 1990's, they are trying to make a comeback. It's NOT GOOD.

Read more about this at divalea's journal, where she is compiling links to other, brilliant commentary. Of special interest: Bryan Lee O'Malley's commentary at his journal, destroyerzooey and Nick Mamatas' commentary at his journal, nihilistic_kid. GO! READ!

I sincerely hope that people will pay attention to this, as the last time TP's horrible contracts came up, everyone who pointed out the badness was basically called old, out of touch, and a hater. People lost friendships over it (myself included), but the end result was that all of us "old haters" were right. The industry is now littered with people who were rooked out of their rights by TP or who were screwed over. For every creator who ends up with a decent deal (Svetlana, Rikki and Tavi), there are literally dozens who put their hands on the stove and got burned. Don't get burned. Be smart. Don't sign away your rights.

And above all: if someone, anyone in the comic industry is that keen on taking ALL the rights to your concept/work?! That means it's WORTH SOMETHING. Which means you can make something out of it YOURSELF, and then never have to worry about trying to wrest control back from someone else. Be careful out there.

Comments

[poinko.livejournal.com]

HPK showed that to me yesterday, and that's absolutely the biggest load of horsey sauce I've seen in quite some time.

I have a feeling that the people who try to pull this kind of crap had massive trouble sharing toys with the other children in kindergarten.

[hecatemahadevi.livejournal.com]

Ha! I sign my pictures with © as a matter of course. Even some of the fanart (Pirates of Dark Water, mostly, since I'm hell-bent on getting the rights for it). What would people like TokyoPop do about THAT, hmm? Make me put White-Out all over it?

[atomicpanda.livejournal.com]

Doesn't mean squat if you sign the contract. That © would be theirs and not yours is all.

[ursulasart.livejournal.com]

Fun with math. Tch.

[beelzebozo.livejournal.com]

I'm really not that surprised. Easiest way to get IP's is to just take them from someone who would just fall over themselves to get published and doesn't understand what they mean by signing over rights. There are so many wanna-be "manga" artists that it'd be easy to take advantage of.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I have the contract for the manga pilot program and shot them down cold. I'd rather self publish than sign that peice of crap.

[obimom.livejournal.com]

well said.

this applies equally in the realm of knitting/needlework design and instruction, and there are an endless supply of newbies & wannabes who are willing to sign over rights just to "get their name out there".

did that once, don't regret it, but won't be doing it again.

[spotweld.livejournal.com]

Since I connect via SBC/SNET/Yahoo/AT&T I just get the local dial up connection numbers for Dallas. Local phone calls are less than a dollar (or at least they were when it was the Adam's Mark). It's slow, but I can still check email.