Excellent opportunity but who would agree to this ?

[Ergi]

Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
The only good thing about it, at all, is the fact that they'll pay on acceptance and not on publication.

No, they don't. Look at paragraph 1. They only pay you for accepted and published words.

Maybe it's due to this contract that, despite their announcement to put free adventures online about 6 months ago, nothing like that has happened.

[KillerWhale]

Dan:

Not really.

What that really means is that you cannot abandon the paternity of your work to a third party (company or other).

For example, if I do a translation, legally I can only abandon the exploitation rights. The publisher may own all the rights pertaining to that: for example, they can sell my translation to whoever they want for, for any money they want, if I abandoned all rights.

But whatever they do, they legally must mention my name as the author of the translation and nobody at all, save me, can change a single letter in my work. Legally, it's totally impossible to abandon these rights in France.

[Ezri's Toy]

Originally posted by Doug Burke
Honestly, guys, I think you're over-reacting a bit. The only instance I've ever seen of Decipher not giving credit where it was due was a mistake. And a mistake they owned up to as quickly as possible.

That may be true currently. But the RGA Author's Agreement, if signed by a writer, gives Decipher the right to ignore a writer's author credit if they so choose.

So, if company ownership or editorial policy changed, the writer could be out of luck in regards to his author credit. No sane writer, particularly a freelancer, would agree to that. One's name and past writing credits equals one's reputation.

Believe me, if Decipher reformed their Author's Agreement to guarantee author credit, they'd get a LOT more adventure submissions.

I would really like to submit some stuff myself. . . but only if I'm guaranteed an author credit if I'm accepted and published.

[Ezri's Toy]

Originally posted by Ergi
No, they don't. Look at paragraph 1. They only pay you for accepted and published words.

Maybe it's due to this contract that, despite their announcement to put free adventures online about 6 months ago, nothing like that has happened.

Yes. . . quite right. After re-reading the contract, I did find that Paragraph 1 said "accepted AND published" and not just "accepted."

That IS a big deal because it brings us to another problem with the Author's Agreement: There's nothing in the Author Agreement about WHEN something would be published if accepted. It could be a month, six months, six years, sixty years, or NEVER.

If a publication is accepted but never published, not only will you not get paid, you can't shop the work around to another publisher.

There needs to be a kill clause included in the contract which stipulates when rights revert back to the author if not published within a certain amount of time. (And, from what I understand, six months is standard.)

[KillerWhale]

Doug: I would never sign, nor write and have an author sign, such a contract where it is said credit "may" be given to the author.

As for the rest, this is rather standard practice. Not the best deal you can have, far from it, but given the situation and the economic niche of RPGs, I'd be willing to accept that.

But not the "may".

[Liz Not Beth]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
2) Author warrants that the RGA being sold under this Agreement was written by Author exclusively and that the Author is the exclusive owner of the RGA including all copyrights, trademarks, tradenames, characters, and other proprietary rights; and that Author has the authority to sell the RGA to Decipher.

Now if I write a Star Trek adventure under this agreement, wouldn't this mean that I would have to avoid using any word copyrighted or trademarked by Paramount (wihich I assume is quite a lot)? Could I even describe a ship as being "Galaxy-class" or place my adventure on board a ship named "USS Excelsior"?
Seems to me that I would warrant that I own stuff that actualy belongs to Paramount if I didn't avoid mayn Trek references like a plague.

And even if I made it clear in my submission that some stuff is actualy owned by Paramount, wouldn't I thereby be in breach of the Author Agreement, not being - as warranted by my signature - the exclusive owner of all the material in the adventure?
Wouldn't any mention of "XXX is a trademark of Paramount" be an admission of my own breack of contract via Decipher?

[KillerWhale]

Yes, another discrepancy. They should add something like "all trademarks except those related to the Star Trek franchise" (dunno the exact wording, I'm no lawyer).

One thing is sure about the guy who wrote this contract: writing contracts is not his full-time job. At least I hope, because he's no good at it

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Robbert Raets]

Before I start reinforcing your denouncement of this 'contract', can someone tell me how one would define first-time, second-time and third-time authors?

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Robbert Raets
Before I start reinforcing your denouncement of this 'contract', can someone tell me how one would define first-time, second-time and third-time authors?

Pretty simple. If you've done one piece of work for Decipher, you're a first-time author.

If you've done two pieces for Decipher, you're a two-time author.

If you've done three or more pieces for Decipher, you're a third-time author.

[Robbert Raets]

Hrm.... Surely one should count all publishers?!

[KillerWhale]

Not necessarily. After all, you don't value an author by the number of his publications.

However, this is a way of having a writer working preferentially for Dec. No problem there, it's quite common practice. Training a writer does take time, and you want the same writer to work for you afterwards and not go to your competitors

[Robbert Raets]

I dunno, I always thought freelance had something to do with being free to choose a publisher and/or not working singly for one company...

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Robbert Raets
I dunno, I always thought freelance had something to do with being free to choose a publisher and/or not working singly for one company...

It does. Decipher is just saying that if you do more than one freelance piece for them, you'll be paid better than someone who comes in and does a one-shot.

You're still free to freelance for other companies.