Work For Hire Contract

Mike Pohjola mikep at iki.fi
Tue Aug 28 14:42:54 CEST 2001


I felt this might interest members of this mailing list. I know Disney
offers a contract not much different from this one, but I don't think we
want it to spread...

-- 
Mike Pohjola
mikep at iki.fi            +358-50-5238399            http://www.iki.fi/mikep

---------- Forwarded message ----------

> This is from James Kochalka:
>
>      Could you forward this to all our pals?
>
>      Five minutes ago, my strip was just dumped by my local newspaper.
>
>      For the past several years my Magic Boy strip has been running as
> a weekly in my local Vermont daily Gannett owned paper, The Burlington
> Free Press. It has also run as a monthly in VICE magazine. The strips
> are taken from my diary, the first volume of which was published this
> spring from Top Shelf under the title The Sketchbook Diaries. The book
> was recently nominated for an Ignatz award for "Best Comic".
>
>      I think my diary strips are the best work that I've ever done, but
> regardless of their quality a horrible wrong was just done to me. The
> REASON I was fired, is because I refused to sign a WORK FOR HIRE
> CONTRACT. 
>
>      They said they needed me to sign the contract to get around "a
> loophole in copyright law" that would keep them from exploiting my work
> on the web. I said "but a work for hire contract means that the Free
> Press would be the legal author and artist of my strip." They responded
> "No, it doesn't."
>
>      Uh... YES it does! If I signed the contract they could make a full
> length Magic Boy feature film and give me nothing!
>
>      The Free Press said that all their freelancers have to sign it.
> "But you don't ask all the other cartoonists in your paper to sign
> them. The guy who draws Buckles doesn't have to sign a work for hire
> contract with the Free Press," I countered. They responded "But those
> strips are syndicated." "But my strip is SELF-syndicated" I tried to
> explain. They said there was no such thing as a self-syndicated strip.
>
>      So, I refused to sign the ridiculously unfair work for hire
> contract, and they dumped my strip. I don't make much money, so this is
> actually a pretty significant financial blow to me.
>
>      So, I'm asking for your kind assistance. Please, if you admire my
> work, email the Free Press and tell them how much you like the Magic Boy 
> strips. Or, if you don't care for my work but find the concept of the
> work for hire agreement repugnant, please email them and let them know.
>
>      Their email address is: letters at bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
>


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