From today’s New York Times story on BostonNOW, whose editor, John Wilpers, is soliciting contributions from local bloggers:
Mr. Wilpers said he wanted to compensate bloggers but was still considering the best way to do so.
And I love this line: “Also appealing to bloggers is that they retain ownership of their submissions even after printing. They have not, however, received money from the paper for their work.” Such a deal!
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Have you looked @ BostonNOW’s Terms and Conditions? * As soon as you post your Content on our Site, we shall have and you grant to us a royalty-free, unrestricted, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully transferable, assignable and sublicensable right and license to use, copy, exploit, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) and / or to incorporate them in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. * Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the preceding paragraph, all such uses of the Content shall be attributable to you, unless you indicate in writing at the time of posting the Content that you do not wish attribution. * You understand and agree that others may use your content and therefore license all of our present and future members and herby grant to such members an irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use such Content, but only for their personal use. * You agree that any information or materials submitted by you to this Site, including without limitation ideas, creative concepts or suggestions relating to any facet of our business, products or potential business or products, may be used, reproduced, exploited, and disclosed by us either in its original form or as modified by us without restriction for whatever purpose we deem fit and without payment of any sum, or any other form of consideration or remuneration or acknowledgement of you as their source. You also warrant that any “moral rights” or “droit moral,” as those terms are defined under copyright laws, in posted materials have been irrevocably waived by the appropriate authors. I’m still trying to decide whether to submit content to the site or not, so have been looking at this closely.
I would not submit copy under these terms for all the tea in China.To do so for free is mindboggling.Alas, I still await compensation from the Glob for the year they’ve carried a link to my blog, thus providing them with free content – which they at least cannot exploit or modify, thank goodness!
I’m not that cynical. There’s a “vanity discount” for being published in a local paper. In lieu of payment, you get some publicity. I know that you can generally contact any local weekly and get a column published.Granted, there’s only vanity if BostonNOW acquires enough respect that people would want to be published in it. The irony is, in order to garner respect, the best thing they can do is act like a traditional media company: good reporting.At least I’d give them credit for looking sharper– both in print and online– than the Metro.
John Wilpers is selling a false bill of goods to sports bloggers. Three of the the four professional sports teams in town have a longstanding policy of not granting press passes to bloggers. For more on that, check here…http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2007/05/credentialing-sports-bloggers.html