Tokyo Pop's New Contract Ripping Off Artists

[KWill]

If they can get away with it, the more power to them. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying "Sign this or I'll draw crappy magna with your brains on that wall." It'll be a life lesson to anyone who signs.

Yes because THAT'S what business ethics is about. And before I get anyone saying the inevitable 'lolz business ethics oh ho ho they don't exist', yeah they do, and this isn't them.

Anyways, that's not the point. Yes people should look at contracts closely before they sign. Look at the amount of books tokyopop DOES publish though, are you saying that all those people were demanding to be underminded by a meticulously phrased contract that signed away their rights?
It sets a bad precident in the industry, and yes there are going to be other companies who are going to think 'hey tokyopop can do it let's do it too'.

More power to em my ass, it's not like it doesn't have an effect on the rest of us. Get some perspective.

Quite. Getting away with something under the law doesn't mean it should be done. It certainly doesn't mean that you did the right thing.

[Kisai]

If they can get away with it, the more power to them. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying "Sign this or I'll draw crappy magna with your brains on that wall." It'll be a life lesson to anyone who signs.

Yes because THAT'S what business ethics is about. And before I get anyone saying the inevitable 'lolz business ethics oh ho ho they don't exist', yeah they do, and this isn't them.

Anyways, that's not the point. Yes people should look at contracts closely before they sign. Look at the amount of books tokyopop DOES publish though, are you saying that all those people were demanding to be underminded by a meticulously phrased contract that signed away their rights?
It sets a bad precident in the industry, and yes there are going to be other companies who are going to think 'hey tokyopop can do it let's do it too'.

More power to em my ass, it's not like it doesn't have an effect on the rest of us. Get some perspective.

This isn't new for Toykopop, and most of the stuff Tokyopop puts out is licensed from Japan where, guess what, they don't natively speak english and don't know the kind of cut throat business ethics the US has. Fortunately, it's usually a publisher vs publisher situation with that, so they can't rip of the Japanese artists so much as the naive English artists.

You NEVER sign a contract signing away all your rights, especially if you intend to do something with it later or take it to a different or better publisher or have someone make an animation of it.

The US has a elevator race to the bottom in regards to content industry. Look at youtube. You make no money from youtube, yet it draws lots of bad content that becomes popular.

Comicgenesis.com's profit sharing might be coming back if there's interest, but it would require running more ads. So if there is no interest, I won't build out the infrastructure for it.

[IVstudios]

You NEVER sign a contract signing away all your rights…

At least not unless you are getting a lot of money for it and you don't care what they do with it. And for some stuff like Logo designs it's simpler for everyone to transfer all rights (for a pre-specified period of time) to the buyer. People just need to educate Themselves (or higher a lawyer) before signing contracts.

And to be fair, there are plenty of examples of Artist screwing over the people they sell their art to by overcharging and limiting the rights transfered. At where I work we've had a hard time advertising for plays because some of the actors won't let us use their name/image on our ad material. Or insist that their names/pics be 10x bigger* than anything else on the ad.

*Hyperbole - but you get the idea.

[Kisai]

People just need to educate Themselves (or higher a lawyer) before signing contracts.

Exactly.

I don't know how much Rowling was paid for all the rights to Harry Potter, but she effectively has no control of it in the US. (From what I've read)

[Rkolter]

If they can get away with it, the more power to them. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying "Sign this or I'll draw crappy magna with your brains on that wall." It'll be a life lesson to anyone who signs.

Yes because THAT'S what business ethics is about. And before I get anyone saying the inevitable 'lolz business ethics oh ho ho they don't exist', yeah they do, and this isn't them.

I wouldn't say they don't exist. I work for one of the most ethical businesses in my industry. I'm proud of that fact.

Anyways, that's not the point. Yes people should look at contracts closely before they sign. Look at the amount of books tokyopop DOES publish though, are you saying that all those people were demanding to be underminded by a meticulously phrased contract that signed away their rights?

Turn this around - If people refused to sign their contracts, would TokyoPop change their policies? Yes. Or they would go under.

So do the people published by them want to be undermined by a meticulously phrased contract? Probably not. But they do sign them anyway.

I wouldn't say that they demanded to be undermined by a meticulously phrased contract. I would say they saw prestige, or dollar signs, or fame and fortune and went against their better judgement and signed a bad contract. Or, they didn't read the contract. Or they didn't consider the ramifications of signing their contracts.

All those things are the fault of the person signing the contract. Not the business offering the contract. It is not, and never has been, the job of a business to protect you from your own stupidity, or ignorance.

It sets a bad precident in the industry, and yes there are going to be other companies who are going to think 'hey tokyopop can do it let's do it too'.

More power to em my ass, it's not like it doesn't have an effect on the rest of us. Get some perspective.

It doesn't set a bad precident in the industry. To set a bad precident, the industry would have to be good otherwise, or teetering on the edge of being bad, and this contract just paved the way for them to be worse. The comic industry is lousy with bad contracts. They are the norm. Read Bill Watterson's arguements concerning comic syndication in the US. This contract is not a syndicate at all. It's business as usual.

The business is good for TokyoPop because people SIGN the contracts. They wouldn't write them like this, if people didn't sign them. It's not a company's job to protect people from their own greed or stupidity.

Quite. Getting away with something under the law doesn't mean it should be done. It certainly doesn't mean that you did the right thing.

Does it mean they're doing the right thing? Oh hell no. But, I never suggested they were.

[CaptainClaude]

nah you didn't say they were doing the right thing, but your approving of the wrong thing makes you seem a bit of a prick.

[Robin Pierce]

No, I shouldn't actually have to turn that around. Bad ethics is bad ethics and they should not be greeted with

'more power to them'

for having those ethics.

And no, tokyopop would not go under if unknowledgable people stopped signing their contracts because they would simply go back to being what they were before: importers and translators of japanese manga, which is the most popular product they offer. I maintain that it sets a bad standard for the industry as a whole, and picking apart the semantics of it does not matter.

What kind of a company tries to pull people over the table? THAT'S the point. Not 'oh well they're stupid for signing it'

edit: And claude's got the point of it there, by the way. That's why i jumped on your post.

[IVstudios]

People just need to educate Themselves (or higher a lawyer) before signing contracts.

Exactly.

I don't know how much Rowling was paid for all the rights to Harry Potter, but she effectively has no control of it in the US. (From what I've read)

According to Wikipedia (using the Sunday Times Rich list as reference) she's worth about 1.1 Billion dollars. So I would say she knew what she was doing when she sold the rights.

[Rkolter]

No, I shouldn't actually have to turn that around. Bad ethics is bad ethics and they should not be greeted with

'more power to them'

for having those ethics.

What did they do that was unethical?

As I see it, they offered up a really crappy contract. In it they detailed what they were offering and what you were giving up. You then have the option to sign it.

They aren't being unethical. You are under no obligation to sign, and they are not the only keyholder to the doors of their industry. You are free to not sign, and go elsewhere, or do sign, and work with them under the terms they have set forth. They did not lie in the contract, nor did they conceal anything. They quite clearly indicated they were money-grabbing sons-of-bitches and that you would end up a loser if you signed.

It HAS to be this way, by the way - if they were in any way obscuring or obfuscating, the contract could be contested, and that is not in their best interest.

I maintain that it sets a bad standard for the industry as a whole, and picking apart the semantics of it does not matter.

That is not what you said before. I did not pick apart the semantics of your arugement. You said that it set a bad precident. That word has a meaning in the English language, as does that phrase.

If you go back to what I wrote you will see that I responded completely and thoughtfully on the idea that the contract was in fact, setting a bad precident for the industry.

This contract does not set the standard for the industry, assuming those are the words you mean to use now. The industry existed before TokyoPop, and cartoonists have been ritually sodomized by their syndicates since the golden age of comics. They're merely continuing the trend.

nah you didn't say they were doing the right thing, but your approving of the wrong thing makes you seem a bit of a prick.

I said:

If they can get away with it, the more power to them. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying "Sign this or I'll draw crappy magna with your brains on that wall." It'll be a life lesson to anyone who signs.

I stand by it - if you sign a contract like this and get burned on your artwork, you might be more careful when you sign a contract for a home, or a car, or to go into the military, or when considering your living will. It's a life lesson at a reasonable price.

::edit:: And I need to point out - this is a life lesson that someone who does not read contracts before they sign WILL FIND OUT at some point or another. This seems a much less harmful contract to learn on than others.

[IVstudios]

They aren't being unethical. You are under no obligation to sign, and they are not the only keyholder to the doors of their industry. You are free to not sign, and go elsewhere, or do sign, and work with them under the terms they have set forth. They did not lie in the contract, nor did they conceal anything. They quite clearly indicated they were money-grabbing sons-of-bitches and that you would end up a loser if you signed.

The gist of what you seem to be saying is that "It's okay to be a prick if you put up a sign that says 'warning, I am a prick.'"

And maybe it is, but the point is that at the end of the day, you're still a prick.

"It's the fishes fault I caught him. He didn't HAVE to take the bate. If he'd inspected it more closely, he would have clearly seen there was a hook in it."

[Robin Pierce]

Yeah see in my book that's unethical. The contract is stated in a way that lets them get away with shit. I would coin that as 'unethical'. I'm sure the english language has a definition for that too. In fact here, I'll provide it.

An action or conduct which violates the principles of one or more ethical systems, or which is counter to an accepted ethical value, such as honesty.

Oh sorry, what I see as ethical, probably doesn't count as a 'system'. Well, that's all right then.

It sets a precident that could become a standard. This always happens by the way, someone brings out the english dictionary and says 'that's not the right word to use' even though they have a pretty good idea of what the other person meant. Either way, just because something was done some way before, that doesn't make it right, and enough comic book creators have sued years later over contracts that screwed them over royally.

In my case, I made an end point that clearly stated what I meant, which was:

What kind of a company tries to pull people over the table? THAT'S the point. Not 'oh well they're stupid for signing it

edit:

"It's the fishes fault I caught him. He didn't HAVE to take the bate. If he'd inspected it more closely, he would have clearly seen there was a hook in it."

yes, thank you.

[Rkolter]

Oh sorry, what I see as ethical, probably doesn't count as a 'system'. Well, that's all right then.

I asked where *I* had said it was unethical. I see where you said it was unethical. You accused me of approving of unethical behavior, which I did not.

We disagree because it was NOT dishonest, which is key to my considering if a contract is ethical or not. It was the opposite of dishonest. It clearly laid out all the elements of a horrible contract.

It sets a precident that could become a standard. This always happens by the way, someone brings out the english dictionary and says 'that's not the right word to use' even though they have a pretty good idea of what the other person meant.

This always happens - someone counters an arguement with a point of their own, and then when they realize they used words they didn't understand properly and someone comes back with a reply that explains why they are wrong, they say, "Oh don't use semantics, you knew what I meaaaant." and entirely dismisses their arguement.

I described exactly why it was not a precident. And you're still wrong. It is not a precident that could become a standard. IT IS ALREADY A STANDARD. Look to American comic syndicates for examples going back into the 1960's.

Either way, just because something was done some way before, that doesn't make it right, and enough comic book creators have sued years later over contracts that screwed them over royally.

I don't disagree with you. I even said it wasn't right!

That they sue doesn't mean the contract was invalid. It means they don't like the contract they are stuck in and think they see a loophole, clause, or situation they can use to get out of their contract. That they sue doesn't mean the contract is dishonest. Just that it sucks for them. Which we knew, because all along I've said that it isn't a precident - it's a pattern. Comic artists have had bad contracts offered to them for decades.

"It's the fishes fault I caught him. He didn't HAVE to take the bate. If he'd inspected it more closely, he would have clearly seen there was a hook in it."

Comic artists are so vastly unintelligent that they, like a fish that bites at any bit of floating food that is passing by, will blindly sign contracts without looking them over. That's what you're agreeing to.

Yeeeeah.

How about this:

A person at at able has a sign that says, "Hello! If you sit down and talk to me, my friends will gladly steal your wallet!"

If you sit down and talk to them, do you have the right to be offended if you find your wallet missing? They did warn you. And they did exactly what they said they would do. And only after you sat down and talked to them.

[Robin Pierce]

Okay yes, I fully admit i used the wrong word. I maintain however, that it doesn't make it right, and that bad behaviour can't be excused by continuing it.

If they can get away with it, the more power to them. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying "Sign this or I'll draw crappy magna with your brains on that wall." It'll be a life lesson to anyone who signs.

In my, and pretty much every other person who has posted in this thread, and plenty who haven't, head, THAT was approving of unethical behaviour. Again, this is why I, and IV, and Kwill, and Claude jumped on it.

So yes, now we're basically arguing what's ethical and that's an opinion and we're not going to have a magical meeting of minds over it.

Kolter:

All those things are the fault of the person signing the contract. Not the business offering the contract. It is not, and never has been, the job of a business to protect you from your own stupidity, or ignorance.

Comic artists are so vastly unintelligent that they, like a fish that bites at any bit of floating food that is passing by, will blindly sign contracts without looking them over. That's what you're agreeing to.

Well you kind of said it there, didn't you. And plenty of people who want to do anything to become an artist DO sign those contracts. In a way, it IS like bait and fish, because so few artists get anywhere in the published comics industry. By your logic your example is just as unvalid as you compared a LEGAL CONTRACT to a criminal act.

[IVstudios]

"It's the fishes fault I caught him. He didn't HAVE to take the bate. If he'd inspected it more closely, he would have clearly seen there was a hook in it."

Comic artists are so vastly unintelligent that they, like a fish that bites at any bit of floating food that is passing by, will blindly sign contracts without looking them over. That's what you're agreeing to.

Yeeeeah.

How about this:

A person at at able has a sign that says, "Hello! If you sit down and talk to me, my friends will gladly steal your wallet!"

If you sit down and talk to them, do you have the right to be offended if you find your wallet missing? They did warn you. And they did exactly what they said they would do. And only after you sat down and talked to them.

It still doesn't make it okay for them to take your wallet. And fishing is exactly what they are doing. Putting out bate to try and catch someone who doesn't know enough to see it's a bad deal.

The whole point is that a) it's a bad contract (as you have said) b) the company is bad for having written the contact c) it is bad that they are doing this because it will encourage other companies to do it. I'm not even sure what you guys are arguing about anymore. Everyone seems to be getting pissy over the use of the word "President." Just because things are already bad doesn't make it okay for people to do bad things. Just because you warn people you are going to do bad things doesn't make it okay for you to do bad things. And what TP is doing is a bad thing. Whether what they are doing is technically legal/ethical/presidented and whether the people who sign the contact are dumb/uneducated/desperate don't factor in. Bad is bad.

[McDuffies]

Does it mean they're doing the right thing? Oh hell no. But, I never suggested they were.

No but you did suggest that what they're doing is perfectly justifiable becuase it's business, and rules of morality and decency have no place in business. You suggested that doing the right thing is not important as long as they make a good buck... or rather I don't even know what you're saying, you usually go on softening your previous statement with "that's not what I said" and klutching to details until I ask myself why you said it in the first place.

"I do it because I can" is not the law of human society. It's the law of animal society, and centuries of evolution produced a few other concepts, or morality, decency, humanity. These concepts aren't applied selectively, like, in big business no, but otherwise yes.

Laws exist to inforce those concepts. However laws are not perfect so when someone gets away with something like this, it's not because that's ok, it's because of law's imprefection. But laws are ever-changing in attempt to fix such holes.

"The whole industry is like that"? So if everyone is rotten, that makes being rotten ok? What, the old "relativity" of moral arguement? Remember that that's the same arguement that child-killer in Fritz Lang's "M" famously uses to justify himself. Some people think that every action can be justified by just finding enough worse examples. However, that's not true because, if nothing, you can always find a loads of better examples to compare to. For every Bill Watterson's struggle with publishers, you can find a dozen of French publishers that operate on completely different principles.
And while we're at that, "stupidity" can be relativised just as well. A good lawyer can make a contract that could make even you sign something you don't want. Do you think you're above that?

And "TP is not liable to protect you from your own stupidity" - WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??? You're talking like we're asking TP to help people who are being attacked by other publishers! But it's TP who is attacking in the first place! There is an action: TP pretending on other people's intelectual property! If there was a forward action - TP making a better contract - that would not make TP altruists who help people! That would merely make two actions even out! NOT ATTACKING someone is NOT THE SAME AS DEFENDING HIM! I am writing this in all caps becuase it is obvious!
The contract doesn't state "We will rip you off your rights". It is carefully phrased as not to state this, but to leave oportunity for such interpretation, eventually. If it said "We will rip you off your rights" they maybe you'd be right to say "people who sign it are stupid and deserve what they're getting". The target audience for the contract are mostly teenagers and very young adults. Do you expect teenagers and young adults to have all the life experience of your 30-something ass?
Noone points you with a gun to sign it, but is a man who pickpockets you better than a man who takes your wallet at a gunpoint? Not by much. Or maybe the existance of robbers with a gun makes what pickpockets are doing all right? Maybe a pickpocket is not liable to protect you from his own hand? It airline company that screwed up Lego's trip ok, because they aren't liable to protect you from their own faulty flies? After all, it's not their fault that you haven't asked around to see if they're any good. And hey, they're getting away with it because most of people won't bother to sue them, so that must mean more power to them!
If you got sick and fall in the middle of the street from all this heat and people continued to walk over you, noone even attempting to help you, would you say that these people are breaking the law? How does someone who won't help you in the street relate to someone who is making such sneaky contract, you ask. Well simply, they've both forgotten the human decency and are led by laws of getting a quick personal gain, and care for nothing else. But I like to live in a world where someone will help me if I got sick, don't you?

[War]

I'm going to smack you in the head and take your wallet.

[Rkolter]

Okay yes, I fully admit i used the wrong word. I maintain however, that it doesn't make it right, and that bad behaviour can't be excused by continuing it.

No, what you did was use the wrong phrase when contesting what I said, and then accused me of using semantics against you when I crafted a reasonable response to your arguement. That was a rude, crappy thing to do, Robin.

So yes, now we're basically arguing what's ethical and that's an opinion and we're not going to have a magical meeting of minds over it.

I agree. I don't think it is unethical. You do. We both agree however, it was a wrong thing for them to do. Let's close the line of thought. It's only pissing both of us off and not really making any progress.

Well you kind of said it there, didn't you. And plenty of people who want to do anything to become an artist DO sign those contracts. In a way, it IS like bait and fish, because so few artists get anywhere in the published comics industry. By your logic your example is just as unvalid as you compared a LEGAL CONTRACT to a criminal act.

But the fish arguement really makes it sound like it's this MONSTER EVIL Company going after the HARMLESS, TOTALLY INNOCENT little fish.

If for the sake of arguement, the company was being unethical in scripting contracts that are legal but difficult to understand and offering them in such a way that people might sign them anyway... isn't the person still at fault for failing to read the contract and then agreeing to sign it?

If what the company did is unethical, it is not the same kind of unethical as say, getting children to rob stores for you because they are assumed to be innocent. The people signing - adults one and all, are not entirely innocent players here. They aren't all 'duped' into signing. They chose to not read the contract, or not ask for clarification, or not have a lawyer read it (many will do so pro-bono).

No but you did suggest that what they're doing is perfectly justifiable becuase it's business, and rules of morality and decency have no place in business.

This is actually a different arguement entirely, but the rules of morality and decency are different in a business. Businesses (big ones anyway) are governed not by the goodwill of the people working within them, but by contracts. "Good" companies do what is good to maintain their employees, or to show their reputation is good. Ask a for-profit company to donate a million dollars but NOT mention it anywhere except buried in their accounting, and they won't do it. Likewise, unless there is a financial reason for a company like TokyoPop to improve their reputation, they won't. Why should they leave money on the table for their artists, if other companies are not doing so?

This is NOT the same arguement as "Just because everyone else is doing it, it is ok for us to do it." I am not saying it is ok. I am however, saying it's not unexpected, and if it is unethical, it is not MORESO than other businesses. It is not a noteable action within the industry.

I'm going to smack you in the head and take your wallet.

If I saw you carrying a sign, any sign, I'd shoot first in the hope it slowed you down.

[McDuffies]

This always happens - someone counters an arguement with a point of their own, and then when they realize they used words they didn't understand properly and someone comes back with a reply that explains why they are wrong, they say, "Oh don't use semantics, you knew what I meaaaant." and entirely dismisses their arguement.

However you have to accept the explanation, less you want to be a user of ad hominem, where you attack the arguement based on who said it, not on what is said in it. If someone made a mistake in their phrasing, that does not make them incapable of making a right arguement.
There's another thing that always happens: a person who is always saying "that's not what I said, you just understood it faultly" despite the number of people who "understood him faultly" telling of either a change of opinion midway, a bad phrasing in the first place, or a person not knowing what is it he wants to say in the first place.

How about this:
A person at at able has a sign that says, "Hello! If you sit down and talk to me, my friends will gladly steal your wallet!"
If you sit down and talk to them, do you have the right to be offended if you find your wallet missing? They did warn you. And they did exactly what they said they would do. And only after you sat down and talked to them.

That's not a proper metaphore. This contract doesn't say anywhere that it will "steal your wallet", that is, it doesn't say that it will take all rights to your comic, in fact it obscures it behind a stupid paragraph about "moral rights". If everything is in the open and honest, then why doesn't it say what moral rights are? Why does it glaze over them as if they're something unimportant, while in reality they are very important.
More accurate example is a person with a sign "If you sit down and talk to me, I will relieve you of your material burdens." Then if you sit down with them and get robbed, when you call a policemen, the person's explanation is: well the sign clearly says that I will take your material burden and by that it's meant 'your wallet'". Now you may go to court to settle whether wallet can be considered a material burden, but it just so happens that he can get a better lawyer so...
And that actually makes the whole point: this contract is not something that defines the relationship between published and author. It actually avoids to define it. It is meant to be dragged through courts afterwards, and it actually relies on authors not being willing to go to court. It does not obey the law, it doesn't even twist the law. It relies on that in some cases, law won't be inforced at all.

(Of course now you'll argue that you wouldn't sit with that person untill you've properly asked around what "material burden" is, but people sometimes do. I guess we're not all so smart and great like you are.)

This is actually a different arguement entirely, but the rules of morality and decency are different in a business. Businesses (big ones anyway) are governed not by the goodwill of the people working within them, but by contracts. "Good" companies do what is good to maintain their employees, or to show their reputation is good. Ask a for-profit company to donate a million dollars but NOT mention it anywhere except buried in their accounting, and they won't do it. Likewise, unless there is a financial reason for a company like TokyoPop to improve their reputation, they won't. Why should they leave money on the table for their artists, if other companies are not doing so?

Business is a part of human society. It should not be imune to general rules of human society. After all, why should you and I, who are not representing the big business but individuals, care about big business's benefits? Why are you taking even a minimal effort to justify business practices? If big business is not governed by good will, then you as individual still are, and your attitudes and opinions should reflect that.

This is NOT the same arguement as "Just because everyone else is doing it, it is ok for us to do it." I am not saying it is ok. I am however, saying it's not unexpected, and if it is unethical, it is not MORESO than other businesses. It is not a noteable action within the industry.

You are judging the business by it's worst cases. Not every business is based on cheating other people. There are honest ways to earn money. But those take effort and time. If you want to earn big money quickly and without so much effort, you do it by cheating other people off their money.
Look, on one hand you say that people who sign this contract are stupid or uninformed or whatever, and they're getting what's coming to them and life lesson and all that. On the other kind, you also say that contract represents the general rules of publishing business. That's nothing short of incouraging people to sign one such deal, because it's basically saying that in this industry, you won't get a better deal. That's contradicting yourself, but that's not the main point: Suppose if there is a contract much more blunt than this one, which says: we're stripping you off from all rights to your creation directly. The only reason why a young artist would sign such contract is if he believed that such clauses are standard practice in publishing and that he won't get better contract anywhere. This kind of belief is incouraged by people who state that entire publishing business operates the same way, which is nothing more than an urban legend based on worst case scenarios.
And that goes for saying things like "they're your only door to the industry" too. But doesn't that make them monopolists, which actually is illegal?

[Soap Committee]

::edit:: And I need to point out - this is a life lesson that someone who does not read contracts before they sign WILL FIND OUT at some point or another. This seems a much less harmful contract to learn on than others.

Yes, all youngsters should learn contract consequences by signing this; they'll spend the next few years drawing the agreed three volumes of pages while living below the poverty-line.

This shall prepare them for the REAL world, for they could do so much worse in starting their adult lives and art careers!

[I want to call it now; SOMEONE will respond with "AAAActually, _________ would be a much worse contract to learn the hard way from," etc etc.]

[Rkolter]

McDuffies, you are posting on points that have already been made and responded to. I've replied to your entire original response in private. The current comments I can also respond to in private if you prefer, but I'm not going to argue business theory with you in this thread.

Soap - I don't see where they will be required to write thee volumes of pages, nor any indication of how much they will be paid. My understanding is they may be required to write one additional story before they are accepted or not. At which point, they'd have to sign another contract of some kind. Even the description the author goes into doesn't describe it the way you are.

Forced to write another short story, and forced to make changes you don't like? Sounds like a hell of a learning experience to me minus the bankruptcy or below-poverty line living.