Bills of Rights

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Eric Zimmerman posted a A Game Developers' Bill of Rights recently, and based it on the one Scott McCloud did for comics

And I know this is going to cause some arguments, but I wondered what people thought. I think a lot of these two documents make sense, esp. lines like "The right to prompt payment of a fair and equitable share of profits derived from all of our creative work."

However, there are some problematic ones. Like,  "13. The right to final say in creative disputes regarding the game." Which basically says a publisher MUST accept a game that is not what they want. Translate to something like an interior designer. the designer is the artist, true, but the owner of the home is the one fronting the money, they shouldn't have to accept something they don't want. That's THEIR right. So yeah, once the contract's signed, I'm more on the publisher's side. The publisher shoudl listen to the designer/artist because he's the expert, but the publisher is the one buying, he should get what he wants.

Here's another one, from the comic one: "7. The right to offer a proposal to more than one publisher at a time." No. Simultaneous submissions can lead to legal conflicts that result in publication delays. This causes legal problems and monetary loss for the publisher. I'm with the publisher again here. You can mail it to whom you want, but you need to tell me what I'm dealing with, and I reserve the right to not consider anything that someone else is looking at just so I don't have all the problems that come with it.  On the other hand, in exchange for this, publishers really need to observe the "prompt" part of the payment right. Publishers, in comics and literature, anyway (i don't know about games) are notoriously bad about sending the check on time. Publishers may not have a huge profit margin, but the average writer is doing far worse.

Here's another problematic set: "11. The right to full control over the licensing of our creative property" and "8. The right of approval over means for distribution, as well as for licensing, merchandizing, and other derivative versions of our games." In Steve Jackson's words, "I have to say that some of those points read, to me, like descriptions of the publisher's appropriate task. A publisher that gives designers veto power over, e.g., distribution channels, is a publisher that shouldn't expect to be in business next year." Give the developer/artist a say, but he's not the one doing the marketing. That's the publisher's JOB. That's what he's even involved for.  

Any publisher you have a lisencing agreement with should have *some* sort of control over other marketing that will damage their investment, like having two companies make action figures on the same product at the same time.

So, what say ye?

[The Jade Knight]

I agree.  It's unrealistic, as nice as it is in theory.  However, I am for copyright laws that strengthen the ability of an artist to eventually regain their work or use creative property they created for other uses, to an extent.

Not sure how that'd pan out legally, though.

[Eric James Stone]

> Simultaneous submissions can lead to legal conflicts
> that result in publication delays.

I don't believe simultaneous submission causes any legal conflicts.  (If it did, then agents wouldn't be able to do it, either.)  Submission does not give the publisher any legal rights to the work submitted -- those rights are transfered only by contract.

The reason publishers don't like simultaneous submissions is that they may invest time and effort into deciding whether they want to purchase something and then find out another publisher is buying it.

[The Jade Knight]

True.  And, really, it out to be their right to decide whether or not they will accept sim subs.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It may not be strictly a "legal" problem, but when you send out a contract because you want to accept the story and you are under the impression you are the only person considering it and then you have problems, well, that's close enough in my book.

The problem with Sim. Subs is that yes, the editor can just blanket ignore all of them, but ONLY IF HE KNOWS. ie, any writer who claims he has "a right" to do sim. subs won't be telling editors that he is. Personally, I believe that the writer has an obligation to tell the editor in his cover letter that other editors are considering it, esp. if the sub. guidelines say "no simultaneous submissions." Other wise the writer is lying and presenting a product that is not as claimed. It is a violation of good faith. If writers/artists/developers want things like prompt payment, they need to do something about enforcing, even if only by peer pressure, adherance to a policy of not doing simultaneous submissions.

[Eric James Stone]

I completely agree that editors should be informed if a submission has been simultaneously submitted elsewhere.

However, I think that the "Bill of Rights" is trying to address a real problem by demanding the right to simultaneous submissions: the problem of overly long response times.

I don't know what response times are like in the game and comics world, but if they're anything like the novel world, they can be long.  Several book publishers take well over a year to respond.  If the creator submits in sequence, it can take years to submit to all the relevant potential markets.

I think that if publishers want to have an exclusive right to look at something, then they ought to respond within a reasonable time -- on the order of weeks, rather than months.

Unfortunately, the disparity of bargaining power between publishers and creators is such that the publishers can basically call the shots.  It's that sort of disparity that such "Bills of Rights" are meant to counter.

[Spriggan]

I think that if publishers want to have an exclusive right to look at something, then they ought to respond within a reasonable time -- on the order of weeks, rather than months.

Of course if that was the case Elantris may have never gotten published since initially TOR had no interest and it wasn't until several months later that they decided they wanted it.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

then we have a problem in the document still.

If the problem is response times, then it shouldn't talk about simultaneous submissions. It should talk about response time.