PRESS RELEASE FROM Co-FOUNDER TIM BRAZEAL:
I am sure that many of you have seen Project X and have wondered what exactly all the fuss is about for some time. Today, you find out!
We sincerely hope that Sci Fi Studios was worth the wait.
Hollywood professionals, TrekUnited staff members and I have been working to get Sci Fi Studios up and running since May 2005, and as with many things, it simply takes time to organize a project so huge. We still have much to do to the website and will be working on it for some time to come. We want your involvement and your input, so you can help form and shape Sci Fi Studios as we move into the future.
Sci Fi Studios will be like no other Hollywood business. Professionals and fans working together within the Hollywood development process is a cutting-edge idea that is long overdue. Many fans around the world would like a voice in the entertainment media they watch and buy. Sci Fi Studios will create that opportunity. It doesn’t matter if your talent is writing, acting, directing or just ideas; this is the place to bring it all together. Sci-fi is imagination, and dreams do come true!
We want you to be directly involved with the process from conception to completion on making movies, television series and other content including graphic novels, comics, and games. You get to help create worlds, characters, ships, races and almost anything within your imagination. Just think, other members or some of our professionals could actually choose your ideas for use in a movie or television series produced by Sci Fi Studios!
We have some of the top entertainment professionals onboard. Manny Coto: Executive producer for Star Trek: Enterprise and the current hit series 24, starring Keifer Sutherland has joined the team. We also have Jim Uhls who penned the screenplay for Fight Club starring Brad Pitt. Jim currently has multiple movies in production. The list goes on and on! If you want to be part of history in the making, NOW is your chance to actually have a say in what you watch and how you watch it.
Don’t just watch the adventure – Be a part of it!
A very interesting idea. Unfortunately, after reading the terms and conditions, I’ll not be signing up. Doing so means signing over *all* legal rights to any ideas that you contribute to the site, whether publicly or privately. They also claim exclusive rights. So you couldn’t even use your own idea elsewhere once you had contributed it.
I’m sure that there will be people who won’t be put of by this. Some will have ideas and don’t want to, or are unable to, do anything with them themselves.
I will watch with interest to see what comes out of this project.
I do wonder if the listed ‘Content Creator’s have had to agree to the same terms and conditions? I somehow doubt it.
From what I saw, fan writers who submit their stories keep their ownership of their stories. If Sci Fi Studios decides to use it, they negotiate with the writer. This is the normal agreement anywhere I think. As for people who submit artwork or ideas, most all forums have that same rule in their TOS if you read them. I imagine if something created by a fan is used, they would negotiate a deal with the fan behind the scenes. At any rate, it’s a great opportunity for fans to be involved in something more than just a fanfilm ! And the people involved are more than just a fan, many of them are professionals in the business.
I will join as soon as next payday comes.
Most other websites do include some sort of condition in their T&C that allows them to display what you post, plus a few other rights. Nothing too onerous or unusual. The T&C for this site goes way beyond that.
Reading Scifi Studios: Terms of Service
They do say in one section:
“If SciFi-Studios.com wishes to use any works submitted by the authors using our service, we will contact the author to work out a suitable financial agreement prior to using such material for any purpose.”
What exactly is a suitable financial agreement? $50 and a pat on the head? In another section they say:
“All information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or any other materials whatsoever (collectively, “Content”), which make up the Contributor’s Contribution, whether publicly posted on or privately transmitted via electronic means to Sci Fi by the Contributor shall immediately become the sole and exclusive property of Sci Fi. This means that the Contributor shall forfeit all rights to the Contribution and/or Content upon his or her provision of the same to Sci Fi.”
Which, boiling of the legal chaff, reads: All Content posted shall immediately become the sole and exclusive property of Sci Fi. The Contributor shall forfeit all rights to the Contribution.
“In each such case where the Contributor is or can be deemed to have some ownership rights to the Content, the submitting Contributor grants Sci Fi the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable approved license.”
This seems to me to be somewhat more than you would find on a typical forum. I assume the studio’s lawyers want to make sure that if they see and like an idea you can’t stop them from using it if they decide to pay you only a nominal fee.
Having said all that, I am not a lawyer. The people running the site are no doubt trust worthy and honourable. I just don’t like the idea of anyone giving away *all* of their rights before any financial negotiations can take place. Assuming of course that they should chose to use your idea.