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Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

18K views 67 replies 46 participants last post by  mafe 
#1 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
 

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#2 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Please leave your comments, thoughts, big and small, agree and disagree, I think it will be interesting with a deabate on this subject.
Best thoughts,
MaFe
 

Attachments

#3 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
well thanks for that Mad. I will certainly have to look deeper into my idea of gettting published in a mag. the vase I posted just recently I had all intentions of wanting to get it published- well maybe not now! I might just have to go thru my husbands agent first!
Thanks for the heads up it has come at the perfect time (for me).
 

Attachments

#4 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
(Some) Companies will try to get as complete rights as possible. I had a similar experience when I wrote my book - the publisher insisted that they keep the copyright… I said "No" and there was no book until new leadership came in and revisited the topic, now they have exclusive rights for several years until the book goes out of print.

I think your approach was fine and Fine Woodworking's seems sensible (it is probably because they are also a book publisher).

It is good to read the fine print in all contracts!

Best of luck.
 

Attachments

#5 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
I think you handled the situation perfectly. I do hope you get into ffw magizine. It sounds like pwm needs to change their policy. I'm sure they don't give out free subscriptions. Thanks for sharing.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
I have only 3 words for you. "Good on you Mafe, well done and good luck…and all good stuff!"
 

Attachments

#7 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
First, let me say congrats Mads for your work being recognized, for good or ill, by a woodworking publication. No matter the outcome, the quality of your projects was (and is) recognized.

I think it is important to know the distinction between a company paying you for the use of, rather than the ownership of work that is submitted. If you ever plan on using the material to publish a book per se or create a video of a woodworking tutorial, problems might occur. I think the power play you are seeing from Popular Woodworking revolve around concerns that they are paying you for an article that they fear might show up in another magazine at the time they release it. Very competitive market in the woodworking magazine world. One thing you might try to do in the future is negotiate a contract where you retain rights but would not release the material for one year after their publication date. This way, their concerns about immediate competition can be alleviated and you still retain your document.

I don't believe there was any intent to deceive on PWs part. In business, most departments don't talk to each other. In other words, the person who admired your work just thought "Wow, cool stuff. I bet this would make a great article…" The contract sent to you was just the standard stuff written by lawyers who want to make sure they don't get sued, that the company doesn't pay for an article featured in 6 magazines at the same time, and something that insures they can republish in the future or put it in book form whenever they want. This would not be in the mind of those that put the magazine together. Your question, though polite and definitely within reason, was not one they were prepared for and so you are getting the aftermath of the questions to the attorneys, the editor, and the business staff from the creative staff so it usually comes out sounding argumentative, unprepared, or lame.

Thanks for sharing and, again, congrats on being recognized.

David
 

Attachments

#8 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
My brother in the North! You acted well, I'm proud of you. $75 for exclusive rights is a joke! Anyway, in my opinion FWW is a much better magazine. I get the feeling that you are busy cooking up something else…!
Sell them your nice cartoon for $100 !!
 

Attachments

#9 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
It really depends on the publisher.

I'm an astrophotographer and I create real space-images. I've had many images published in magazine's and books. In most cases, there is not a "formal" contract stipulating it. If you consent to usage of the image in a magazine, you simply say so, normally by email, and they will send you a check for single usage of it. Of course, the parameters are usually outlined in the magazine or on their website, but it's usually the same typical usage-agreement.

In doing so, you will likely consent to offering them full-permission to its usage, meaning that if they want to use it in multiple publications then they do not need permission. However, they still must pay you another usage fee for each occurance.

It's not typical that you would yield exclusive-rights to an image (or project/tip in this case)...and truthfully it doesn't benefit them in anyway other than that they won't have to go through the administrative process again should they decide to run the same content in another publication. This is actually to YOUR benefit, since you don't have to go through those hassles…you just start receiving checks.

But, definitely read the fine print and ask your questions!
 

Attachments

#10 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Maybe its just me, but I don't see a problem with the FW stuff as posted above. FW explicitly states it does not take "exclusive" rights, and simply asks that you do not use the material anywhere else for 90 days…

Am I missing something here?

FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere
 

Attachments

#11 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Thanks for posting this….it may come in handy sometime for others with great projects or ideas!
 

Attachments

#12 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Well, congrats for having projects good enough to be considered for any magazine!

The publishers are probably running scared now with the internet, forums, blogs, self publishing - all of these things now possible through the internet and technology. Magazines are probably having to rethink their approach and/or have not yet reacted to the changing landscape of publishing. Maybe even $75 was a lot of money at one time, it's worth about a coffee and a bagel now.

The interesting question also becomes this however: if I post on LJ who owns it? While LJ is offered as a free service, it is nonetheless now owned by a corporate. Corporates are interested in only one thing - making money and the only way for publishers to make money is either by selling advertising (offering viewer's eyes) or by selling content (books, magazines, DVDs, whatever).

Who owns the content on LJ and what rights do you give up when you post here?
 

Attachments

#13 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Very interesting subject, I think you are a very patient and understanding man. You are deserving of any and all rights to your own work within the law, if you where deceived, intentionally or not, that does not sound right, I hope this sort of thing is not wide spread.
 

Attachments

#14 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Steve, that would probably be a question best given to Martin. Since we sign no contract, our writings are our own. I for one am confident that my "brilliance" is not at risk and LJs will not make a billion dollars from my writing.

David
 

Attachments

#15 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Hi all,
Kerry, FWM are doing right in my eyes and I give no critics but positive to them.
But PWM are not only asking for these 90 days, they want the full rights.
Jay, in Europe we also are more used to trust, not to ask for something for nothing (close to).
DIV, I look forward to test FWM, they seem to be more woodworking and less 'image', but as a Dane, I had to try first.
I don't cook on a lot myself in this way, but I do have some plans for a web site but it will not be a new woodworking site, but a place to help people who are less fortunate.
David, I have got so much recognized here at LJ, so it was more as a luxury bonus pack!
And to be honest a few words from a fellow LJ are more worth to me, than to give my rights to a magazine, that after my standards are not treating people fair. I think PWM should look at how FWM are dealing with this. I agree that of course they don't want to see the article in other places at the same time, but to take the rights are not at all fair.
They do take these rights so they can make videos, web based publishing, and books. But is this fair? That they pay this little for using it so much? I would be happy they used my ideas, I believe in democracy of knowhow, especially in this web world. I don't think PWM tried to deceive me, they simply made a mistake, and have a policy I think is too much one way, and try to take advantage of peoples need for five minutes of fame.
I did write those several mails asking if they were sure in this, and they ended up saying they were.
Toolchap, ;-)
Lynn, this is also how I see it.
Steven, ;-)
TJ, yes we have to be aware, trust is not a thing we can expect, even it makes me sad. Where are the good old fair play?
Best thoughts and thank you for the comments, I'm happy to hear that it is not only me that feel something is wrong, I was a little worried to blog this since I know how web based critics can be read wrong,
MaFe
 

Attachments

#16 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Mike, ;-)
Steve, yes I think the problem is greed and fear, but in this new world of information, I think openness are the way, not to take rights from others, and sit with the arms closed.
The second part is for Martin to answer, I have asked him once and was smiling after the answer.
Itsmic, thank you.
Best thoughts,
MaFe
 

Attachments

#17 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
I can see you finely pulled the tricker and posted it :)
and very well put together of you I know you have tumpled with it for a while
and now I can understand why it was difficult the first time you talked about it
you realy have gone a long way even in this post to tread them them more than fair
compared to how many others wuold have rampeld away with big letters :)
I tip my hat for you Mads

best thought´s
Dennis
 

Attachments

#18 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
I feel your pain brother!

I have been approached a few times with offers to produce exclusive content in the form of videos or text for instruction at various sites. Some were from major tool manufacturers.

The money offered for my time to produce these products were a pittance and I would relinquish all rights. I countered for more money and/or to retain the right to use what I produced in my own website but no other location. This was rejected.

I know they thought I would just feel excited to be asked by a big name company and probably do it for next to nothing. I am sure many would jump on this opportunity to be connected with major tool brands without realizing how much work, real time and labor, would be involved.

I run a business of remodeling and custom woodworking. I know exactly what my time is worth and I will not give it away to a large, money-making corporation. I give my time to friends (LJ's) and people who need help, it is a personal matter to me to share what little time I have with real people, not large corporations turning large sums of money. I have no problem with them making money, but if they want exclusive content then they need to pay a fair sum for it. I am not charitable towards large corporations, they are not charitable to me in any way when I need a tool.

People will notice that I do not have sponsors. I do not condemn anyone else for accepting sponsors and advertising, but I turn down offers all the time (that is for advertising on my site.) I am sure that I could have been making money by now if I had taken them.

I think you should give FWW a try, they are considered the best of the magazines anyway. I think their contract seems normal and fair.
 

Attachments

#19 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Mads - can you tell us what Martin said?

Perhaps individually our ideas are not worth billions but collectively, I think LJ is now a force to be reckoned with in the woodworking world. Martin knows that - it's on this basis that he continues the work here and has chosen to begin the commercialization process. I don't have an issue with that- he has to eat too and be rewarded for the effort that he puts in.

I guess this is a model of the millennium isn't it, though. Provide the venue for the creation of a community of like minded people who create content for free. Package them off and sell them. We are like the Collatorized Debt Obligations ( CDO ) of woodworking knowledge and consumer power.

The magazines try to hang on to the older model where they buy and retain the rights of the content as well - at least in FWWM's view, for long enough for it to be exclusive to them to capitalize on it.

Btw, I still read my collection of magazines which I collected over a decade of subscriptions and I still find new things in there. This is the funny thing about woodworking - it hasn't changed much in 1000's of years - so who really owns any of the knowledge? and does it stop having value after only 90 days?
 

Attachments

#20 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Mafe congratulations on attracting the attention of publishers. And thank you for sharing the results.

Interesting to hear that Popular Woodworking requires exclusive rights. That doesn't seem to fit with the way they use the web and are consistently encouraging others to blog. Fine Woodworking's methods seem much more reasonable by obtaining the rights but not exclusive rights. And the 90 day window makes perfect sense. They don't want to go through the process of getting it into their magazine only to have it beaten to the press in the online world.
 

Attachments

#21 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
That is pretty normal for a print publisher. And one of the reasons I refuse to allow anything I have created go through them… It's not just Woodworking publications either…
 

Attachments

#22 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
I'm canceling my subscription and writing a letter that's steeling! others should too.They wouldn't change unless they have too.
 

Attachments

#23 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Thanks for the review of the deceptive practices of a publisher. While I will probably never have the opportunity to turn an offer like this down it is still a good thing to be aware of. With the amount of focus our government has given to intellectual property rights, mainly protecting corporations, I am glad to see you walking away from this offer.
 

Attachments

#24 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
What a can of worms!
I agree with you Mafe, that amount is hardly worth your efforts especially when you loose the rights to your hard work.
"Hard" as in I know how much you hurt every day and what it costs you irregardless of the actual effort expended!
I do not currently subscribe to any magazines except for several free trade publications.
I got a little tired of the repetition with the same articles (or close to it) in ALL of the popular publications.
I seldom find inspiration in them anyway.
I will occasionally buy one off the rack if something intrigues me and I want more information however!

I think it is good advice to read the "fine print" including the EULA that we all agree to when we join any group or buy software etc. - be it web based or "brick and mortar" -- Know what you are getting into!
 

Attachments

#25 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Hey Mad,
congratulations for having good enough work to be considered for any magazine!

And thank you for sharing the results.

Each of us have the freedom to choose our own jail. As well as Mr Swarz. So frankly, I think none of you are doing anything wrong.

That is neither good or bad. Both of you are making honest businesses. You may not agree with the conditions of the publisher.You can then submit yours, and that´s is. You may or may not agree. If not, you can still write in other mag, or even continue posting here. (BTW, is not only cheaper for us, but also fun, isn´t it ?) :)

I am sure that the conditions of exclusivity of rights required by the magazine, are the result of their own previous experiences. (Which may differ from the ones of other mags). One thing that helps in these kind of negotiations is to understand the reasons why. After reading FWW mail, I would also take you same decision.

Take care, and congrats again
 

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#26 ·
Popular Woodworking Magazine (who have the rights?) is that really ok?

Popular Woodworking Magazine
be careful with readers contributions, 'Tricks of the trade'.

Hi LJ's.

I have an experience I want to share with you; unfortunately I can't say it was a good one, but not the end of the world either…
All of you, who know me here on LJ, probably know I'm not a complaining kind of person.

Some months ago I was contacted by Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), they asked if they could bring one of my posts here on LJ in the magazine (They had found it them self).
I was of course proud, and said yes! (Imagine little me, Danish MaFe in an American woodworking magazine that was a fun story to tell my friends about, even my LJ friends).
Then I send them the stuff they needed, and explained my project, this took me some time, an hour or two, but I thought it was worth the effort and the fun.
Then app. a month later they wrote me again, this time that they wanted to bring five of my projects! Five!!!
Again I thought it was fun, and they told me I would participate in a competition about money for tools, and also I would receive 75-100 dollars for each contribution.
So now we were getting somewhere I was thinking, this could even pay a part of an airplane ticket (I was thinking of South Africa - DIV). As some of you know I'm retired due to an operation in my neck, so I could also use the money.

But something told me to check what was written with small letters, and nothing was written with small in the mails I had received, so I looked in the magazine (I am a subscriber), and then I had a wakeup call.
In the magazine, they write that the contributions will be their property after! Their property!!!
So I wrote them back, and asked what the meaning of this was? If it was also the case when they had contacted me? And if they found it fair not to tell me if so?

This started a series of mails, where they thought they could, perhaps not, perhaps, and so.
They did excuse for the lack of information.

One of my last mails was this:

I'm only happy you ask.

I think that if you want to own the rights of people's ideas, yes then you should pay them a proper fee, something equaling to the time spend.
But if you post print them and hold the rights to re print and so on, I think the prices are fair, as long as you don't try to take over the rights of the project, and then it's what is called a win - win situation.

I say that I can give you the right to print my projects for the mentioned prices, and re use them for books, videos, and whatever, but not give you the right over the projects, this is the offer from me.
If I want to make a video, a book or whatever I want of curse the right to use my own project as I want, I put them on the web to share, and I will put them in your magazine to share, but I will not give away the rights like that.
I'm an architect, so I usually get royalties for the projects I sell, that's a different story.
But you can ask the magazine if they will swap ideas, then I can get some of yours, at the same price… Smile.

No please take me serious, I try to be reasonable with you here.

Best thoughts,
Mads
(I only post this one mail to show that there was a good tone between us and that I tried).

This was as large as I could get, but it was not enough (think I made quite an effort).

At the end they had to ask the editor (Mr. Schwartz I suppose), and then the answer came that they insisted to have the right on the projects they bring!
Quote: (As you have discovered, this is common practice for magazines to ask for the rights to tips. In fact, other publications ask submitters to sign contracts…).

Cartoon Gesture Font Parallel Handwriting


They did say, that they will not ask one to remove the post from LJ, but it can't be used any other place…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is that ok?
Is that really fair to the contributor?
Where I come from this would never happen, of course it's not the publishers right when he asks you to send in a 'Trick of the trade', and pay you a symbolic price for it. (I worked with commercial for seven years).
But perhaps the land of the free, are not free anymore, at least when money are involved?

I have been waiting to see what offers they made me, but none of the editors called and offered me some of their projects for 75 dollar… Perhaps I should give Mr. Schwartz a call and ask if he will sell me some of his projects for 75 dollar, I don't know why, but I think I know his answer. lol.

So where do I want to go with all this?
I just want my LJ, buddies to know that if you are 'offered' to be man of the month in PWM you also lose the rights to your own ideas and projects.
This is of course a choice; perhaps for some five minutes of fame are worth 75 dollar, to me it is not!

To end this, I will say PWM has been polite and always responded in a good tone (The editor of 'Tricks of the trade, especially) even they did not know their own rules when asking.
But I have decided not to renew my subscription to the magazine, since I can't support a policy like this against the readers and contributors (sorry I was otherwise happy to read it).

Fine wood working Magazine

I have spoken with Fine wood working Magazine, and they have explained me their terms for contributors, and this is not at all what PWM calls the 'standard', they write me:
If you were to submit a proposal for an article or a department submission-for which FW would also compensate you with payment-FW does ask your for the rights to do whatever they'd like with it in the magazine (you'd receive this in a contract), and that material would be given full rights for use in FW. However, FW has full rights, but not exclusive rights, to the material. This means that any ideas, text, etc that you submit to us are yours to use elsewhere as well. The only thing that FW asks is for there to be a 90 day period between the time that FW publishes, and when you post that same material elsewhere. This is mostly for strategic reasons, to not diminish the power of the publishing time. Once the material is out in the world for 3 months, it is usually fine to post things elsewhere. Here is more detail:

-if the photos for a final article were taken by you or a freelance photographer who you paid yourself, you own the full rights to those photos as well of course. (again, we just ask for a 90-day wait period before further publication.)
-if the photos were taken by the FW staff, they do belong to FW. Any use by you of the photos should be cleared through our administrator. This would happen once the article or department submission is completed. One thing which we often give to authors, however, is the first page of the article, much as you see on our website. This means that readers will be able to read the first part of the text or quite often see a very nice first-page photo of the item or jig, etc. You can use this as promo, link to the main article, etc. as you wish, I believe (Betsy can inform you further).

-submitting a proposal, and any materials with it, does imply your permission for FW to use that material as it sees fit. What this really means, is that we use it for determining if a further article or submission can be considered. We do this at frequent proposal meetings, and if you wish to submit anything, please feel free to do so directly to me, and I can move it along the process as quickly as possible.
Here is a full online version of our author guidelines, and the official version of what I told you is there:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_authorguideline.asp
You might also like to see this page:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=28379

This is to me fair treatment of the readers and contributors, and no I have no connection to them or any other magazine, just had to react, so I think I will try a subscription.

My thoughts now:
Perhaps after all the time has run away from Woodworking magazines, perhaps it's time for new ways to share ideas, show projects and sell project plans on demand and at a fair price.
Perhaps it's time that we look at the possibilities of the web, solutions where people who are willing to share their ideas can do so, and when they make a project tutorial and plans they even get a piece of the cake, and don't lose the rights to what is theirs.
I have a feeling that we here on LJ are taking the first steps, and after this episode I intend to do more myself for a more democratic approach to woodworking knowledge.

For me at the end, the answer was quite easy to find in my heart, so as I said in the beginning 'it is not the end of the world'.

If someone needs more info of the mails, then I'm a open source person, so feel free to ask.

Best thoughts,
MaFe
Good for you for standing up to the publishing machine! Unfortunately, this situation is all too common still, especially with research journals. Many college faculty are required to publish their research and sign over all rights…they even need special agreements in order to use their own material in teaching their classes or further research. There is a growing movement among research libraries to help their faculty negotiate much more favorable copyrights for the intellectual property that is produced at their institutions. I didn't realize this usurious practice extended to lowly woodworking magazines. It's sad to see that Popular Woodworking is in this category.

Fine Woodworking works with many professional woodworkers who would never consent to signing away their rights to their products as that would destroy their businesses. I think theirs is a much more modern view of publishing in the internet age. If you care to learn more about how one of the many affected educational institutions is helping its faculty deal with this issue, there is a vey informative set of pages at http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-open-access/open-access-at-mit/mit-open-access-policy/working-with-the-mit-faculty-open-access-policy/
 

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