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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seankreynolds" data-source="post: 1394425" data-attributes="member: 3029">I don't think it's right for the company to barrel on through if it's inconvenient to check up on contract rights. And I think it's OK for an author or artist to assert his rights to his work. However, I don't think the contract rights apply in the case of CD-ROM compilations.There are two issues here. (1) Whether or not the CD-ROM counts as a reprint. (2) Whether the author/artist complaints about the CD-ROM reducing the marketability of their old work holds water.For point 1....I don't see a CD-ROM "reprint" of a series of mags as any different than reprinting them in paper, or on plastic, or on sheepskin, or as an audiobook, or in braille.And because I don't see the final form of the magazine as any different, I don't think the authors in question have the legal right to complain about CD-ROM reprint any more than they do about a paper reprint. If the author/artist is legally OK with the company reprinting the magazine a BILLION times and burying the earth with cover-price copies of the magazine (for which the author/artist doesn't receive a dime, since they've been paid for their work), the author/artist should be OK with the company "reprinting" the magazine on CD-ROM.Jolly's contract (where he retains electronic rights) brings up an interesting question about the status of those contract rights. Personally I don't think the "I retain electronic rights" clause is valid when considering the reprint. But I'm not a lawyer, and I'm also much more generous when it comes to my own material (i.e, more than willing to give it away after a short while); other authors and artists certainly have differing opinions ... but IMO a lot of the more conservative contibutors out there have to realize that their older material isn't _that_ valuable, and the clinginess they have toward it only hurts the consumer.As for point 2....Remember, the game industry rule of thumb is that 90% of a typical book's revenue comes from the first three months of sales ... so after a year, it's basically not generating income. ("Evergreen" products like the core books are the exception) So you have authors and artists who don't like the idea of a CD-ROM reprint because they claim such a thing reduces their ability to market their work.   But if you're talking about a short story you wrote five years ago, having the story OOP doesn't help you (it doesn't make the story any more valuable unless you're the Next Big Thing In Authordom). Having it available through a $50 CD-ROM as one of several hundred such stories (and other gaming-niche articles) isn't going to reduce your chances of pitching a collection of short stories to a publisher. The argument from the author is that the publisher will say: "Oh, so you want to make a $20 book that's a collection of your short stories, and the only other place to find this one story is in an OOP magazine article or a $50 CD-ROM? Sorry, that CD-ROM makes it too easy to get that story and there's no reason for people to buy your proposed book. Now get outta my office." I don't think that argument holds water. In fact, I think the CD-ROM will expose more people to your work, people who didn't know you before they got the CD-ROM, and if they like your short story they'll try to find other things by you ... such as the short story collection you got published.  As for artist, the same thing applies. If you're an artist, and you make a name for yourself, and eventually you want to publish a book of your illustrations, is the presence of a screen-resolution copy of one of your illos on a Dragon Mag CD-ROM going to prevent a fan from buying your book? "Wow, I could have a book-sized print of this great color illo, or I could have a crappy 72 DPI scan on a PDF ... clearly I want the PDF!" Same situation as the artist ... person buys CD-ROM, sees cool art by Mr. Artist, tracks down more things by Mr. Artist.Maybe I'm just too generous; I don't see the release of the CD-ROM really hurting the authors or artists (in fact, it's making their material available to more fans). And I see _not_ releasing the CD-ROM as only hurting the fans.Anyway, I'm starting to ramble.</blockquote>

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