Sony looking for "works"

[Draggar]

I see Somy is asking people to submit works, either art, stories etc..

I wouldn't mind this, but one part makes me feel apprehensive about this,

in their ToS regarding this, when you submit it, they "own" it.

Would this bother anyone else? I'm thinking I may sumbit EQ based stories, but I don't think I'd submit my non-EQ related stories.

[vovinit]

Have they stated why they want it?

[Cantatus]

You see this quite often when submitting artwork to just about anyone. I think most of the time it is for the company to cover their butts and avoid lawsuits. They don't want to publish someone's artwork and get sued by that person for doing it without their permission. This way they can cite that they own the artwork and can't be sued for publishing their own property.

That said, I'd be hesitant to submit anything of yours that you might consider having published yourself someday. You don't want someone to turn around and sue you for making money off of something they could claim to own. I'm doubtful many companies would ever pull anything like that, but I like to be safe. When you consider the amount of fan fic, artwork, and comics relating to EverQuest there already are floating around on the internet, I'm doubtful SOE is doing this for a vindicitive reason. They're just trying to avoid lawsuits.

Of course, when it comes to fan fiction, it's a whole grey area. While I'm not completely familiar with copyright laws, I don't think I could publish a book about EverQuest if I wanted to without SOE's permission. Technically, words like "Neriak," "Iksar," and "Solusek Ro" could be proven to be property of SOE, especially if you use them in the same context. I'm sure they could try to stop you if they thought you were making money off of their products.

[Lothay]

Any submission you make to almost anyone becomes the property of the company to which you submit.

This is simply good sense, legally speaking. It prevents all sorts of lawsuits and trouble for the company solicitng submissions.

Some companies will make it specifically clear that you're doing what is known as "work for hire," where you and they agree that you submitted the work for what ever compenstation (often just your name in print, but just as often not even that) the contest or submission request promised.

The simple point I'm trying to make is this: Do not submit anything to anyone you want to own. If you don't want to retain ownership of something, or are willing to trade your ownership for whatever is being offered, then submit.

A note on copyrights: I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV or an RPG, but there is a great deal of good information available for free from the US Govenment. The same goes for trademarks, servicemarks, and patents. Do your research before submitting something unsolicted, or submitting anything without a pre-negotiated contract. Heck, do your research anyway.

I've made money for more than one company by creating something that ended up as their property and not mine. It pays to understand your rights and the law.

Aside from that, fanfic collections are a great way to get something you've written or drawn into print. And breaking in to print somewhere, anywhere is often key into getting published a second and third time.

[Zeralenn]

Having written for several magazines over the years, buying or requiring "all rights" is the usual drill. Very few places will publish under anything else anymore. One magazine I used to write for (out of print now; these facts hopefully are not connected) finally allowed me to start selling to them under First North American Serial rights after I'd been writing for them for about two years, but that was something I had to negotiate. (First North American Serial states they can publish it first, but after it's published and distributed the rights of the article revert back to me. This is not the usual way things are done these days, especially with articles or artwork).

...Zera

[Itek]

Hmm....

I'm not sure about the legal status of "solicited unsolicited submissions" ... that's a new one.

See if you send in a manuscript to ... say Paramount for Star Trek ... they treat it as "unsolicited submissions" and, in all likelyhood, don't read it. But they are under no obligation to return it. AND they are under no obligation to use it, conversely they are not obligated to consult or remunerate (pay or acknowlege) you if they use it in whole or in part.

SOE/Verant does the same thing. (While I was a guide many years ago Luclin was announced, and with it the advent of "horses" in the game. Some player submitted a /petition and wanted to know when SOE was going to annouce that it had been HIS idea. I kid you not. He actually thought SOE was going to issue a press release saying "Jim Bob gave us the idea to include horses.")

But ASKING people to send stuff in, in a non-specific way, is... unusual. (It is solicited, but by not asking a specific person directly it remains "unsolicited" in that they didn't ask Itek or Kiz or Sanna they left it open.)

Freaky.

A friend of mine is co-founder of an online game company. I would not submit, and have not submitted, story lines or other suggestions because I do have a financial interest in my ideas. But I'd say that unless you have a serious and reasonable belief that you can make money on your art/story/idea that you have nothing to lose and small potential to gain by making such submissions. (They might actually use your idea or a variation on it which would be pretty cool.)

[Draggar]

Here's the link, if anyone wants to see it:

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/...&message.id=10

[Itek]

Ahh...

In the (above mentioned) link the SOE employee posts a link to Here which you are told to follow to HERE where we find the "fine print" as the saying goes...

Copied here for your convienence...

By submitting (e.g., uploading or transmitting) Content to an SOE Communication Feature, you automatically grant SOE the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. In addition, you warrant that any and all so-called "moral rights" in the Content have been waived.

To boil that down for people who aren't legalese-inclined...

"What you send us is OURS, now and forever, to use as we please, and WE don't owe YOU diddly. Period. Because YOU said that was OK with you."

Wouldn't really hold up in court.... but if you had the money to fight them on it, you wouldn't need the money they might pay you in the first place.

(Contract. Consideration. SOE didn't give you any so the contract is void on it's face. But you'd spend thousands in legal fees getting a judge to even hear the case.)

[Draggar]

To boil that down for people who aren't legalese-inclined...

"What you send us is OURS, now and forever, to use as we please, and WE don't owe YOU diddly. Period. Because YOU said that was OK with you."

Wouldn't really hold up in court.... but if you had the money to fight them on it, you wouldn't need the money they might pay you in the first place.

(Contract. Consideration. SOE didn't give you any so the contract is void on it's face. But you'd spend thousands in legal fees getting a judge to even hear the case.)

Then, I'd like to keep control over the "Draggar" name, so I'll change the name if I do submit anything, and I would only submit EQ realted stores that I wouldn't be able to 'sell' or publish.

Thanx for the advice & info.

[Koru]

See if you send in a manuscript to ... say Paramount for Star Trek ... they treat it as "unsolicited submissions" and, in all likelyhood, don't read it.

I don't know how they do it now, but for a very long time they did in fact read them. No, I never sent in anything of the sort so banish that thought from your mind RIGHT NOW! I know this because it has been mentioned in several trekkie documentaries and interviews that they did read most of the manuscripts people sent in. Now obviously the guy who repeatedly kept sending in manuscripts staring a non-main character of his own making didn't get contacted, but they did read the stuff. And you have to figure in some cases... well everyone needs a good laugh every now and then.

[Itek]

Funny... THEY say they don't read most of them from unknown submitters without agents. (no, really)

How many, precisely, editors do you figure they employ to read the unsolicited submissions? 5? Reading ... 3? 4? a day? So they could read 100 a week which averages to 5000 a year.

If 1% of fans submitted a submission a year...

Now ponder the expense of paying 5 professional editors. And the ROI (return on investment) likely to be recovered. (Remind me again how many Trek series are in production? Making 23 episodes and 1/2 a movie a year? And what percentage comes from previously unpublished authors?)

No. Years and YEARS ago they read SOME of the submissions. Then when a landfill the size of some TOWNS could be filled each year ...

(Yes, yes... the books.... but again that's like 12 a year with perhaps 1 new author every blue moon.)

[NerissaGoldenrose]

Also, most of the books revolving around a television series or movie are NOT based off unsolicited submissions. Generally, if YOU ask THEM for permission to write a book, you'll nearly always get turned down (there might be that VERY RARE time they find something they like by accident). THEY ask YOU to write one... and only if you've already proven your ability as an author. Thus, you see folks like R. A. Salvatore writing Star Wars books -- they already know he can write, so it's not as much of a risk as authorizing some unknown off the street to write something using their characters. I'm not sure if they also provide a general plot outline or not... I think I saw somewhere that they do, but I may be remembering incorrectly on that.

[Anubsin]

basically anything they're asking for though is theirs by copyright law anyway so its not going to be a big loss, you would not be able to self publish an everquest story or book though you could put it on the web like some of the fan-fic comix that are out there now.

[Straha]

From what I've learned of copyright law and free use/fan fic rules what they're doing is this, If you send them anything it's theirs as already stated, forever in perpetutity, they can change it, use it to publish and profit from, anything they like. The difference between this and the already existing fan fics and such like my site is so long as I don't submit my comics to them, they're mine. Granted under copyright law I can't publish for profit, eq is sony's intellectual property, but on the other side of the coin Sony can't take my characters or story and use them how they please, the story is mine and remains so so long as I don't blindly send it in. Looked at right, this could be a clever ploy to gain control of new fanfics and comics like /gu and WTF before they become popular and use them for their own ends by suckering people who love to create but are uninformed. After all after seeing what they did to EQ atlas, and the abysmal flop of their professionally commissioned comics they've probably come to the conclusion their players are quite a bit smarter then they give them credit for and will create stories and such much better than they could come up with, R.A. Salvatore's upcoming works excluded. But I don't think their quite that diabolical, it's a nice thing for the player community as you could get one of your stories published in the in game papers and /gasp actually affect the world you play in! What a concept, only took five years to stop fighting P).