yeah, the age of a lot of these people under contract always gets me, too. Like there was a trust between the author and who they worked with. Otherwise they wouldn't have had hopes that Tapas would undo that contract under a good faith error. They were thoroughly taken advantage of. Dunno the age of this person though, I got the gist they were a little older.
At least over the age of 18 (both the writer and the artist). If you aren't you can't participate in said programs in tapas. Just answering in case that was your doubt.
Oh yeah, they're definately 18 at least, or they can't get ad revenue. But also, that's really freakin young. Mind you, I'm over 30 so I see anyone under that age of 25 as "that's a good age to make some MISTAKES"
Yeah, there's probably more to the story than this - but also, guys, read your contracts. Yeah legalese is boring, but you want to know that stuff at least at a passing glance. Could be the difference between avoiding a shady contract and signing away your image rights in every medium for eternity. (wish this was an exaggeration, but there were "art contests" that were in fact NFT farming operations)
Were Tapas (or maybe in this case Kakao) right in having a clause in the first place to "cancel" completed work? No, there should probably at least be some sort of return for the creator if they weren't given advance warning. But it takes two to get into a predatory contract.
I just want to bring up this part again since it seems to have been missed.
It would be nice to hear from someone at Tapas to ensure this is not part of a contract ever again.
I think the chances of someone from Tapas proper directly addressing this are slim. They have hundreds of contracts of varying levels between artists, writers, and independent creators that depend on their involvement with each individual IP. I doubt the set standard they use for one carries across to others.
Now I understand why a girl I follow said "I had to take a lawyer or get the help from someone accostumed with copyright to help me figure out the contract and be able to advance some requests" while telling how she became original. Tapas seems a bit predatory
"That's why read the contract and never sell your IP out"—yes, duh. That's not the point. Good for you you don't fall for it, I don't care.
I just want to know why Tapas has that kind of clause and from the wording sounds like they deliberately make it easy to make. I want to know the testimonies of other creators (why only Miqin spoke up?). Is it true? Hell, I wanna read the contract if possible.
Because having a predatory contract is still predatory, and something done in a bad faith, whether you "Just read carefully uwu and don't sign in, guise" or not. The clarification from this could be really helpful for people who are considering working with Tapas.
Honestly I think with any company or situation with a contract poeple tend to strongly suggest getting an agent or a lawyer to help with legal matters, course idk how accessible that is in terms of location and cost but I know i've seen it brought up often enough
What's frustrating or I guess just disappointing is that even if a company or other entity seems trustworthy you've still gotta do what you can to avoid potentially being misled
It's a shitty way to discover that all businessmen are scum and all companies are predatory. Especially so when it comes to art fields where there are a million young folks hoping to make dreams come true. Comics, TV, movies, games, don't matter. And they get away with it because if you demand better the next artist on their list wont.
Contracts differ a lot, even for those in the same project — for example for our unpublished Tapas Originals project, the contract I the artist received was very different from the contract the writer received.
A lot of us are under active NDA, has other projects tied with the platform, not active on social medias, and/or only stick to close friend groups. Like I know more in-detail stuff about miqin's situation but I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to disclose it.
Remember when the Webtoon contract discourse was happening — out of the many Originals artists, only a few publicly spoke up with their details.
Tapas has much less contracted creators than Webtoon so there's going to much less people willing to speak out publicly with their contract details.
But predatory contracts at this platform isn't new -- the creator of Chinatop has spoken multiple times about their contract:
https://twitter.com/4threset/status/163135711550704435214
(reminder i did 50 panel episodes for $50 per ep when I was on originals.)
Hm.
I don't know what the contract was, but from my understanding the author signed with a different company who merged into Tapas. Or am I misunderstanding that? Kakao?
That would mean the original contract was void at that point so it wouldn't matter. That'd be the point I assume in sending the new contract that she accidentally signed.
The old contract doesn't matter, whatever it was. I'm a little confused as to why it does seem to matter to folks. Or maybe I really am missing something.
I believe the new contract is what is actually relevant, and yeah, it was shady. I think people ought to be a bit careful of victim blaming here (not that I think anyone is doing it intentionally, but it's an easy mistake to fall into).
Nobody is going to sue her for what she said on twitter. They'd be stupid to try. Not sure what country she's in or the laws there, but I think in most modern countries it'd be a waste of time to bother.
I know, but someone has to be here to get the conversation going and bring up these questions. Only way change might some day happen.
You absolutely do not have to. Actually I would straight up say: please don't. Contracts are so tricky and it's true a contract can vary greatly and how @candiedcotton brought up that the Kakao buyout could have completely changed the contract because the original may have been void.
Tapas was bought out by Kakao like a year or two ago. I think they mean that they signed with tapas, and then after Tapas got bought out their IP was cancelled by Tapas and they they signed a new contract, still under Tapas.
Depends on the country laws, but generally, yeah. The original contract is void the moment the company is dissolved. A contract can be bought by another company, but usually with a rewrite. That's most likely exactly what happened here, so the old contract is totally irrelevant at that point.
We are talking about companies set in Korea, they are quite known for being very predatory with their contracts. It's very well discussed in the K-pop industry but it's not going to stop future generations from pursuing a dream. Usually in K-pop you start with a debt, you owe the company money until you can break even with the money they spend on your debut.
With webcomics I assume it's the same thing but in the opposite order.
The sad reality is, webcomics are still new to the international majority even if you discovered webcomics back in 2014 they've been around in Korea much longer. There are industries dedicated to creating webcomics and people outside of Korea are competing to get that five second fame.
Korean companies are notorious for exploiting Thai, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese people, that's why K-drama/K-pop was so popular. It wasn't until 2016 when other countries who weren't the targeted demographics became the targeted demographics. I mean, no shame to Brazilians who has always been interested in Asians. They are one of the saddest bunch, cause human trafficking in Korea is a thing.
I digress. Now that you know, Korea is just being Korea at least until the public here actually do something about it. But that probably won't happen since there's people who encourages you to make your own site to host your comics and then there's those who advertises that they are a indie comic hosting website (with even smaller readership base). The Internet can only be spread so thin, guys. The issue can't and won't be resolved unless every artists and writers on the internet come together to make a choice. Nothing will change in the contracts because Korea is not going to change their ways any time soon.
Edit: Also, Webtoons is millions of dollars in debt right now, I wouldn't be surprised if Tapas is already on the red too. That's when companies take desperate measures, they kick people until the place burn down. Though Korean companies do have the tendency to keep going even when their gut is telling them to stop. It's just sad honestly. It's about public image... I suppose.
Either way, if they were contracted by one company that was later dissolved or bought out by another company, the contract is no longer valid because the original company does not exist, and new terms need to be implemented. Most countries have these kinds of protections and it's just common practice.
I make a living being contracted by all sorts of companies, and in the game industry, company mergers are the norm. I've never had a contract survive a merger of any companies and it always has to be rewritten (I've done this probably a dozen times at least).
It can also take a while for a contract to be fully processed, and for something like Tapas I wouldn't at all be surprised if it took that long. Or the author in question had tried their best over a lengthy period to work with Tapas before finally breaking down and saying what they said. We really don't know.
Pretty much what Ive been thinking.
This whole situation reminds me of tokyo pop before that company collapsed. Doubt tapas would sue cus this creator had the balls to say pirate their creation.
But yeah that weird weak ownership, signing young starry eyed creators as young at 18/19 (that's like still high school for some folks), canceling series suddenly after telling them they would be renewed for a 3rd volume. Shift in emphasis on what they assumed makes them money dispite evidence to the countrary (Tapas Korean import, wait for free... that whole thing was a disaster the google reviews), over streaching to different media to the point you wonder if they should just focus on thier comics (tapas live action tv and their attempts to get an anime by only importing series just incase of they make anime, so abandoning English speakers ). Shady contracts, crearors losing partial of thier IP. All we need is a disater of a contest and the circle would be complete
Question is how long until history repeats itself and the seemly successful facade ends (Im having doubts due to the layoff, losing their entire novel team is a red flag. Cus companies can be under going trouble but still want to expand for the sake of appearances for investors)
Has Tapas responded publicly at all? (in general, not necessarily about this specific contract?)
As someone who gives money to Tapas precisely so that they can pay artists, writers, translators, and editors; I want some assurance that they are acting more ethically than pirates.
If you can afford it, it's generally a good idea to hire a legal agent to read over contracts because legalese is difficult to understand and you can bet that the company has their own legal team. However, individuals (in this case, writers and artists) are often not in a position to negotiate better terms. They may realize the terms are unfair but acknowledge that they won't get opportunities if they don't accept the terms. In an ideal world, companies wouldn't offer predatory terms in the first place.
