The blogiverse is expressing great fear of the “pact” (read: contract) for TOKYOPOP’s new Manga Pilot program, in which creators develop a 24-36 page chapter or short story for digital distribution. Lea Hernandez broke the story, and here’s a PDF of the pact.

T-pop decided to eschew legalese for the ‘pact’ in favor of simplistic language, but the result comes across like they’re trying to lure a 10-year-old somewhere with candy. But that’s not what people are worried about; the following seems to be the main concern:

“Moral rights” is a fancy term (the French thought it up) that basically has to do with having your name attached to your creation (your credit!) and the right to approve or disapprove certain changes to your creation. Of course, we want you to get credit for your creation, and we want to work with you in case there are changes, but we want to do so under the terms in this pact instead of under fancy French idea. So, in order for us to adapt the Manga Pilot for different media, and to determine how we should include your credit in tough situations, you agree to give up any “moral rights” you might have.”

Now, since their definition is a little bit…fuzzy, shall we say…here’s Wikipedia’s version: “Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work.” The moral rights traditions are a bit spottier in the US than in Europe; see here for more details on that.

Now, I’d say that there are some other things to be worried about in this contract, such as the fact that if anything in your pilot results in a lawsuit, you’re responsible for any and all defending you have to do, court costs and all.

Chris Butcher also has some word on the payment front– apparently the PDF originally noted that payment for a manga pilot project was $750, which works out to about $20 a page for a 36-page pilot. On the one hand, that’s not a lot…but on the other hand, I wonder how many of these actually sell much at all?

So, there you go. I don’t think that T-pop is trying to pull one over on creators with this pact, but it certainly doesn’t sound like an amazing deal.