Follow-Up: Tpop’s Contract
A few people got after me (via comments or privately) about saying that I didn’t think TOKYOPOP was trying to pull one over on creators with their contract yesterday…so today I wanted to offer a link to Brigid’s take over at digital strips, because she says it much better than I do. She interprets the contract as something a creator should certainly be very wary about, but that she thinks T-pop is really just trying to get the flexibility to develop the manga into formats they can sell. Or, as Brigid puts it:
having watched Tokyopop for a while, and having talked at length with their director of project development at NYAF last December, here’s what I think: They want the unfettered right to chop up the manga into bits and reformat it for cell phone presentation and to make those little films on their website.
She also notes that some of the aspects of the contract that people are getting upset about, such as not getting paid until the work is approved, aren’t necessarily uncommon or as bad as they look. Not to say that she’s defending the contract; she agrees with everyone else (and me) that signing away one’s moral rights to their own work is not to be taken lightly, if taken at all.
If you want to check out some more points of view, Lea Hernandez (who originally linked to the contract, PDF version here) has been rounding them up.
Tags: global manga, TOKYOPOP