News Translation of Details on 'Improved Contract' for Qidian China Authors by u/rwxwuxiaworld

This was translated and made by u/rwxwuxiaworld on r/noveltranslations.

Original thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/noveltrans...nslation_of_details_on_improved_contract_for/

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I previously translated an author's thoughts on the 'new contract' Qidian China was offering its authors, based on the insanely restrictive Webnovel ones, and the thoughts were highly critical. This uproar arose right when new management came into Qidian China, and they promised to seriously consider it. There were a lot of doubts, but to my pleasant surprise and the surprise of many others, they actually did what they said they would and came up with an ‘improved contract' that was better than not only the 'new' contract, but also a bit better than the 'original' contracts that everyone was on previously. This is a very positive thing, because I've already been advised by other Chinese platforms that they are now loosening their own terms in order to keep pace. Because I do want to be fair on this stuff, I am now translated the publicly released details on the ‘2020 improved Qidian contract'.

Note that there are multiple references to 'Yuewen'; Yuewen is basically the company that owns everything literature-related for Qidian and its affiliates; it is the parent company which wanted to invest in Wuxiaworld years ago (we declined), operates Webnovel, operates Qidian China, and bought and shuttered Gravity. The image raws can be seen here. The one thing that isn't clear is if this will only be true for novels 'going forward', or also be retroactively applied to old novels (which would be awesome for authors, but I think it is highly unlikely). This will be a summary, as translating every line of legalese involved in the changes is just too much work.

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At A Glance: Yuewen's New and Old Contracts

1. Yuewen will provide a 'basic contract', a 'licensing contract A', 'licensing contract B', and an 'advanced contract' for authors to choose from. Previously, the 'licensing contract' was the standard. Now, authors can choose between the four. Based on their personal needs, authors can decide what they will license out and the duration of the license. Each contract is an individual license on a 'per novel basis' and not for all of the author's books, and authors can make the duration/etc. decisions on a per-novel basis.

2. For the ‘basic contract’, the author does not need to provide Yuewen with any copyrights at all. The author will have access to basic functions on Yuewen, but neither the author nor Yuewen will receive or split any money from this novel [ie, it is a ‘free novel’ on Qidian itself].

3. For the ‘licensing contract', authors can choose between ‘lifetime copyright' and '20 years after the completion of a series'. Details:

Licensing Contract A: Author exclusively licenses the novel to Yuewen until the copyright expires. If Yuewen then authorizes others to make secondary products (manhua, anime, toys, etc.), then they will give 50% of the profit received to the author. Yuewen also agrees to provide editing services, promote it on Qidian, provide rewards, awards, and other benefits.

Licensing Contract B: Author exclusively licenses the novel to Yuewen for the duration of the novel + 20 years. If Yuewen authorizes others to make secondary products, then they will give 70% of the profit received to the author, BUT Yuewen isn't required to provide any promotion at all for the novel on their website or through other channels. Basically - if you don't think you need us and can get it done by yourself, no problem, keep most of the money, but we aint gonna do shit for ya.

4. Advanced contracts are for experienced authors who have more specific needs, and the exact terms will be different for each author. In short, it is the formal classification for the ‘better contracts’ that their platinum authors have always received, and presumably newer authors won't be given access to it.

5. It is now made clear that the authors maintain copyright ownership over their creations. The widely hated and despised clause that basically said that Yuewen ‘hired’ the authors to ghostwrite their own novels (and so Yuewen itself is the real ‘author’) has now been nuked. [This is pretty important, it was one of the clauses that disgusted authors the most.]

6. Authors now choose if their novels will be included in the ‘free reading’ systems or not. In the past, Yuewen could simply push it through on their own; now, they need to receive active permission from the authors before beginning the process.

7. The relationship between Yuewen and authors is now clearly spelled out as a collaborative relationship. A line in the ‘new’ contract that demeaned authors by saying they were doing work-for-hire but still didn’t qualify for any employment benefits was removed. They added in a new clause that stated authors would receive various ‘gifts’ as encouragement, but still noted that authors would not be considered employees [which makes sense; authors aren’t employees, the issue was that Yuewen was prev. trying to have its cake and eat it, classifying authors as ‘paid ghostwriters’ but ‘not employees’].

8. Limiting the scope of the licenses and ‘right of first refusal’ clauses. Per the previous contract (and this was really fucked up), any contracted author who wrote a short story, novelette, novel, screenplays, essay, dissertation, song, poem, etc. while under a Yuewen contract would see the copyrights over those things automatically go to Yuewen. Even if a contract is over, for the year after the contract ended Yuewen would still have the right of first refusal for acquiring those works. Under the ‘improved terms’, this clause only impacts ‘novels’ and ‘screenplays’. In addition, the ‘1 year right of first refusal’ now requires Yuewen to a) Match any offers given by other parties, and b) Gives Yuewen exactly 30 days to respond with a matching offer.

It's still incredibly restrictive, but somewhat less so now.

9. It is now clearly spelled out that authors will receive proceeds from any adaptations or secondary products, regardless of the work was done by Yuewen itself, its affiliates, or third parties. This is a big deal, because under the ‘new contract’, there was a line that specifically said any Yuewen affiliates that make products or adaptations off a novel didn’t have to compensate authors at all. This line has now been removed, and a new line added that in the event of an adaptation, Yuewen and the authors will at that time have to sign a new supplemental contract spelling out the terms. This is a HUGE thing for authors.

10. Authors will not be financially responsible if a novel and its adaptations make no money OR lose money; Yuewen will suck up the loss. While this seems obvious, the way the ‘new contract’ was worded meant that legally, Yuewen could conceivably come after authors if adaptations they financed (which the authors didn’t have the right to object to) lost money, which was pretty fuckin’ ridiculous. This is no longer the case as they have reworded that clause.

11. Yuewen will no longer demand the rights to manage and operate all of an author’s social media accounts. Again, it seems crazy that this was ever a clause to begin with, but it has been removed.

12. Yuewen no longer has the right to hire ghostwriters to complete an author’s work, or demand authors make changes to the plot. I don’t think this right was ever really used, it seems like it was just in the contract as a way of holding yet another a knife to the necks of authors, essentially ensuring they couldn’t ‘go on strike’ so to speak.

The now-deleted clause regarding forcing authors to make changes to the plot was REAL nasty and included stuff like 'if we ask you to change it and you don't change it or the changes are insufficient, and it happens more than three times, we have the right to stop your book immediately AND force you to repay every cent you ever earned from Qidian'. Oof! Definitely a good clause to terminate.

And that's it!

 

so da international market hmm indirectly affect da contract? that based on gossip qidian on china wanna wreck author based on international qi contract~ or da gossip author strike pretty effective~

 

Dayum...

 

Unlikely because the wn contract hasn't changed and authors on wn still must pay server costs

 

you mean qi inter?
that different problem~
this cat mean da gossip said qi on china propose worse contract to author on china cuz qi inter contract then another gossip said author on china put strikes~
it just gossip~

 

ohhhh

i think the source of your gossip is me LOL.

 

server doesn't cost that much to influence a company decision when they bombarded with contract scandal