Overview: Conde Nast has been the Graphic Artists Guild's poster child for the demanding, unnegotiable contract over the last year. Although slightly bending to pressure by allowing some artists to negotiate the contracts, their basic boilerplate is a classic for rights grabs and unclarity.

The Monitor has also learned that Conde Nast has two contracts: a "Good" contract for the more acclaimed illustrators, and a more restrictive contract for the lesser known contributors. We've reviewed the "Good" contract. If it is good, we'd love to see the "Bad" one!

Contract Highlights:

=> "The results of each commission must be satisfactory in form and substance to Conde Nast..."--this means that Nast can reject a finished drawing, for any reason, and withhold payment. The criteria is too vague and gives Nast great power to reject finished art at will. An artist's rep solved it by changing the line to, "The results of each commission must be consistent with artist's portfolio".

=> Asks for rights "throughout the universe"--an increasingly common clause in contracts along with the infamous clause asking for all right to any media "now in existence or hereafter developed" (that's in §2.c of Conde Nast's contract). The Monitor is against all such sweeping clauses as each region should be negotiated (North American Rights, European Rights, Australian Rights...). Besides, isn't the world enough?!!

=> "non-exclusive right, for full term of copyright, by itself or third parties, to republish, reprint and reuse the Work..."--The contracts exclusive rights are spelled out in §2.i. and §2.iv. Exclusive rights mean that only Conde Nast can publish the work from "date of commission to 90 days beyond the U.S. on-sale date of issue. If cover art, that period is extended for 1 year. Artist can not publish work in any other publication during those periods.

The non-exclusive rights are what happen after the exclusive rights time periods are over. The non-exclusive rights listed are vague. They list using the art, artist's name and likeness in "promoting, advertising and publicizing the publication" and then sneaks in "...and merchandising" at the end of the line, which means that they can sell anything that the image appears on and not pay the artist a cent. It's the "and merchandising" clause and the vagueness of the non-exclusive rights that concerns the Monitor

=> "The right to crop, retouch or otherwise modify the Work."--a far more reasonable clause to replace is that "artist will be given first option to make any changes in work that client may deem necessary".

=> Grants and assigns copyright to Conde Nast for Australia and New Zealand for full term of copyright--they've already asked for all rights throughout the universe. There must be some copyright law problem with those two countries. Excessive and without compensation.

=> Gives Conde Nast right, by itself or through third parties, to publish, reproduce, distribute, perform, display, enhance, adapt or transmit in electronic and optical form and in any media now known or hereafter developed--the famous "Media now in existence or hereafter developed" clause. Excessively sweeping without compensation.

Also of concern is the "or through third parties", which allows Nast to sell their exclusive and non-exclusive grant of rights to another party. Also the merchandising rights of products with your illustration on them.

=> Requirement to contact Conde Nast, and get written permission, if image is used for any commercial or advertising purpose, whether Nast's period of exclusivity has passed or not--this means that if you want to use or resell the artwork to anyone else, whether the use of the work falls into an area of ownership by Nast or not, Conde Nast must be asked for permission, which they can withhold. They may not own exclusive right for a particular use of the artwork, but they can, if they chose for any reason, block anyone else, including the artist, from using it. Way overboard.