Erik Sherman's WriterBiz

A spot about the business of writing as seen by a freelance writer. That includes marketing, sales, contracts, copyright, planning, research - in short, the business end of writing.

Name: Erik Sherman
Location: Massachusetts, United States

I'm an independent writer and photographer who covers business, food, technology, books, media, general features, and pretty much anything appealing that results in a signed check. My work has appeared in such places as the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Fortune, Inc, Fortune Small Business, the Financial Times, Advertising Age, Saveur, US News & World Report, and Continental

Friday, April 18, 2008

Contract Review: Pet Age Magazine

A writer requested a review. As always, I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and you should try to negotiate what you don't like about a contract. I'm focusing on the potential problem areas, for the most part.
  • They pay 45 days after acceptance, but there is no definition of when acceptance happens. I'd suggest modifying the on acceptance to something like "...on acceptance, which may not be unreasonably delayed or denied."
  • They want the following rights: First North American Serial; right to use the article for no additional pay in any of the publisher's other magazines; non-exclusive right to license others to use the piece electronically in any form; non-exclusive right to license reprints so long as the author agrees in writing in advance and, if the publisher doesn't get money, the writer doesn't get money, either.
  • Publisher can use writer's name, image, and bio in conjunction with either the article or the magazine itself.
  • You wave moral rights and will make "reasonable revisions" to the article at their request.
  • You must provide source contact information and provide confirmation of all facts and keep that material for at least a year.
  • You warrant, among other things, that "the Work contains no matter that is unlawful, obscene, constitutes defamation or otherwise violates the rights of any third party, including, without limitation, any copyrights, patents, trademarks, confidentiality obligations or trade secrets, privacy rights or publicity rights," which is very broad and should be constrained with the word "knowingly" or even "to the writer's best knowledge."
  • The publisher wants you to indemnify not only for an actual breach of the warranted, but for alleged breaches, which is really bad, because you could be stuck even if you had done nothing.
  • In case of a breach, or even an alleged breach, the publisher wants the automatic ability to ask a court for an injunction.
  • If there is a legal dispute, you have to take it up in Chicago.

Labels: , ,

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've signed 5 Pet Age contracts so far. I don't recall them being so scary. I did ask to have "alleged breach" stricken from the contract the first time out and they agreed. I would love for other writers to ask the same.

Marian Collins

April 18, 2008 1:04 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home