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Black Library's annual open submission window is open a month earlier than last year, now running April 1 - June 30th.

They've changed the procedure from the last few years, taking submissions via email rather than the old online form, and they've changed the submission requirements a little bit too, so make sure you check it out if you fancy yourself a writer.

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Getting-Started/FAQ-Working-For-Black-Library.html#guidelines

Also, they're saying that this will be the last (foreseeable) year for new writers to submit pitches for novels. With Hammer and Bolter up and running they're going back to the old ways of expecting to you prove your stuff through short piece submissions before they'll task you with longer works.

Hope this is newsworthy to at least a few of you, and good luck if it is

I was looking over their legal what-nots before I sent in my stuff, but it says they want to use whatever X sends as their own.

For legal reasons we will only accept your submission if you agree to assign all intellectual property rights in it to us. This means that by making a submission you automatically give Games Workshop ownership and exclusive rights to use your submission for any purpose. It is important that you are comfortable with this before making a submission to us. Please do not make a submission if you do not agree to this.

I want to send in my stories to the BL team, but I don't want GW people to use it for whatever they want.

What should I do?

Begel Dverl wrote:I was looking over their legal what-nots before I sent in my stuff, but it says they want to use whatever X sends as their own.

For legal reasons we will only accept your submission if you agree to assign all intellectual property rights in it to us. This means that by making a submission you automatically give Games Workshop ownership and exclusive rights to use your submission for any purpose. It is important that you are comfortable with this before making a submission to us. Please do not make a submission if you do not agree to this.

I want to send in my stories to the BL team, but I don't want GW people to use it for whatever they want.

What should I do?

Honestly, I would probably only sent in parts of stories...if they like what they see, they can contact you for the rest and your foot is in the door. Either that or only submit one (assuming you have several).

Accept that GW owns your submission and any further work you did for them would belong to them. That's normal.

Sadly HBMC is right. There is a whole thing about people not being able to really sign away IP rights, but it's something that really has to be fought to win if push comes to shove. And we all know of GW's Legal IP department so it isn't worth the headache. Remember, they honestly tried to say they owned the design of the human skull on things in the filing against Chapterhouse.

Either accept they have the rights, or put your work up on the net for free and see if they come to you, and you can work some leverage from there if it really is that good.

Such is life.

And it's not just GW either.

I mean, the stuff I do for FFG belongs to the FFG. I wrote it, yes, but it belongs to them. I don't think they'd ever be able to claim that I didn't write it, but I'd never be able to claim ownership of it either.

And as I said, this is normal. Part of doing work for companies. Might as well get used to it now.

Yup, H.B.M.C.'s got it right, this is standard business, especially when dealing with a company that's publishing stuff set in their own universe.

I know it's easy for the alarm bells in your head to start ringing out with cries of "They're gonna steal my awesome idea!" but when it comes down to it, if your stuff's worth publishing, it's worth paying you for.

Yeah. The alarm bells should really only go off when you get a change of contract they force you to sign out of nowhere. And THEN has the moral and IP rights being signed away. They pulled that at an old job of mine, and it was solely to screw the call center staff into working on Saturdays for no extra pay.

I did think it odd that it stated anything I create outside of work whilst employed there they could claim, but I know that isn't really enforceable.

In many ways having the contract is better than just publishing on the net. As your name is on legal paperwork somewhere. Better than putting your ideas up, say like in a fan Codex or something, then seeing something eerily similar just happen to appear in an official Codex down the line for example. Because good luck proving that one.

Atma01 wrote:
I did think it odd that it stated anything I create outside of work whilst employed there they could claim, but I know that isn't really enforceable.

This actually --by some reliable accounts-- has a reason.

You know the Dark Elf Regiment of Renown, Mengil's Manhide's Manflayers(try saying that ten times fast!)?
The story as I've heard it was that the sculptor, Chris Fitzpatrick, supposedly did those outside of the scope of his contract with GW. It wasn't something he was supposed to do, and it caused a huge ruckus because they couldn't settle on who owned the rights to it. So rather than release with the then-brand new Dark Elf army book(the one previous to the current one), they had to sit on it. It wasn't until after the Storm of Chaos campaign that they reached a settlement agreeable to everyone and the models finally saw a release.
Since then, this "anything you create outside of work whilst employed there--but belonging to our universes--belongs to us" clause has continually surfaced.

Beware my NSFW Horus Fulgrim fanfic!!! BEWARE!

Kanluwen wrote:You know the Dark Elf Regiment of Renown, Mengil's Manhide's Manflayers(try saying that ten times fast!)?
The story as I've heard it was that the sculptor, Chris Fitzpatrick, supposedly did those outside of the scope of his contract with GW. It wasn't something he was supposed to do, and it caused a huge ruckus because they couldn't settle on who owned the rights to it. So rather than release with the then-brand new Dark Elf army book(the one previous to the current one), they had to sit on it. It wasn't until after the Storm of Chaos campaign that they reached a settlement agreeable to everyone and the models finally saw a release.
Since then, this "anything you create outside of work whilst employed there--but belonging to our universes--belongs to us" clause has continually surfaced.

Well it is fair enough in an industry like that, no issue there. But my anecdote was about a company that does salary packaging. It seemed highly unnecessary, and just out of place. I thought it would be funny if I had finished my DH Character Creator for Excel VBA and it took off, and they try to claim the rights or something. I assume it is a standard clause in contracts now a days but really it just seems to make waves to me for a non-creative based industry when put in there.

Johnny-Crass wrote:Beware my NSFW Horus Fulgrim fanfic!!! BEWARE!

You know, there is actually some art I have seen on /tg/ of fulgrim reading a book like that. Much to his surprise. Why can't I ever have useful knowledge instead of whatever this is?