December 18, 1997
S.I. Newhouse, Chairman
Condé Nast Publications
350 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Dear Mr. Newhouse:
A number of our members have expressed concern about your recent "Artist Agreement." The contract itself, as one-sided and inequitable as it is, is familiar to us. This recent version, however, contains an insidious feature: a retroactive claim of rights to work published by Condé Nast since August 1, 1994. Inexperienced artists might not realize that they did not have to sign away rights to work already published and paid for. Even experienced artists, who would not knowingly sign away rights to their work, might easily miss this inconspicuously placed date.
This underhanded attempt to obtain rights to which Condé Nast is not entitled is disturbing. Your contract already demands an overly broad grant of rights: the right to publish and republish the artist's work in every conceivable form including syndication, electronic reproduction, and third-party licenses with no additional payment to the creator. This demonstrates a disregard for your contributors' rights to the art they create.
We ask that you immediately withdraw this contract from circulation, and further, that you contact those artists who inadvertently signed it to confirm that indeed they intended to grant you retroactive rights. We also ask that you rewrite your "Artist Agreement" to make it a contract between mutually respectful entities, and less of a one-sided ultimatum. We are available to sit down with you to discuss the contract and how to make it more equitable to your contributors.
Meanwhile, we are alerting our members as well as the wider community of graphic artists to read their Condé Nast contracts very carefully, and to be aware of what rights they are being asked to sign away. For those who may have already mistakenly signed the contract, we are informing them of their right to terminate this agreement with Condé Nast.
Sincerely,
Paul Basista, CAE
Executive Director
cc: National Board, Graphic Artists Guild