One possible positive I can see is that "The Beginning After The End" might get an anime.
One more reason to keep a wary eye on the ToS for posting here. Tapas already has an iffy track record regarding creator rights, what with the 'right of first refusal' debacle, not to mention taking IP rights to premium series. One sniff of them having any hold over the IP of non-premium series, and I can't see any knowledgeable creators staying.
There is no real need to keep a wary eye on ToS. Any updates are widely announced to creators and happen approximately every 6 months. Given that my team is responsible for content guidelines, those changes won't include clauses regarding licensing or IP rights. Independent creators will continue to keep all rights to their own series, as they have in the past.
What worries me about this is that the platform will become even more imported / translated premium stories centered and there'll be even less space for english and free ones to be featured and grow.
Well if there is a marked, they will keep us. (Or someone will start a new site for that marked)
Who knows?
Tapas has always been pretty good compared to all their competitors as far as contracts and creator rights go, so while I'm usually the one shouting "platforms aren't your friends!" from the rooftops, in this case I'm inclined to trust that Tapas probably wouldn't suddenly change the terms of IP ownership, and if they had to due to a merger with really harsh terms, they'd likely give us a heads-up, not least because they'd need to change the terms of all the contracts they currently hold with premium creators to do so (which would require them to re-sign every one of them). I don't think Tapas would have a huge amount to gain financially through suddenly claiming rights- never mind exclusive rights- to every comic and novel on the platform, including ones that'd lead to fights with other platforms and creators needing to remove their work, so I can't see why it'd be worth the negative backlash.
I'm inclined to think they're too sensible to do anything like that.
It's not that I lack trust in Tapas, specifically. I keep an eye on the ToS of all the comic sites I post my IP on, I think it's good practice.
I suppose I'm just quite wary, after learning what happened with those creators sucked into the Tokyopop vortex a decade or so back. Webcomics may be ascendant now, but that won't last forever, and we may find ourselves in a very similar position to manga at the time. Stakeholders in desperate positions sometimes implement desperate changes, even against the best advice.
Any possibility of the sort would be many years away, I can't see webcomics slowing down any time soon. And, most likely, nothing bad will happen. But I encourage fellow creators to be alert, just in case, as things don't stay static forever.
As somebody who was a finalist in the last ever Tokyopop UK Rising Stars of Manga and knows a few people who won and pitched etc. I would reassure you that Tapas' terms are nothing at all like TP's. Tokyopop's contracts did actually include clauses where the artists signed all rights to not only their work, but also the IP to TP as part of their contracts. It wasn't suddenly thrust on them out of nowhere, they signed up with those terms because at the time, TP was one of the only publishers that would sign original manga style creators outside Japan. The creators assumed that when TP went bust, they would get their IP back, but were shocked when the company refused to even sell them.
Tapas has made us sign and agree to no such contract, and if they DID change the terms of use for the site, they would require us to agree to new terms & conditions.
I can completely understand why you feel concerned, but having actually lived through the Tokyopop crash and having friends who were directly affected by it, I assure you, this isn't the same. It's good to always keep an eye on agreements where IP is concerned, but it would be pretty much impossible for a change like that to come out of nowhere. TP had horrible agreements (I know, I had to sign one when I entered the rsom) and then acted very unreasonably after taking advantage of naive young creators with no other publishers to go to.
I would say if you can get your hands on the agreements offered by the company in Korea and Japan they will probably be the same here. and that will ease your fears ... or not.
With Kakao openly controlling 40.4%. of Tapas shares, is the CEO's statement meant to assure us they control and plan to continue holding the majority of shares off the trading market?
There are a bunch of articles out there right now about this. With in the past few days things are moving quickly. There are also some fairly deep rabbit holes. I'm ordering pizza and following this saga. Every time I go online there's a new article or new information about Kakao Page, Kakao entertainment, etc.
This is from January: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/launch-of-kakao-entertainment-through-strategic-merger-of-kakao-page-and-kakao-m-301213691.html2
I read a bunch of articles last night...couldn't find anything referencing how much stock Tapas retained.
Obviously, Kakao believes there's an ability to purchase at least 10.6% more stock based on repeated reports. If Tapas makes a statement saying 51% of market shares are held in reserve, it would be a bigger confidence boost in terms of corporate control than a blanket denial of fiscal reports.
That's why I am asking.
the thing that gets me are the articles saying kakao has acquired Tapas. The last time I checked my dictionary "acquired" meant "it's mine, all mine, my precious."
If I could buy things for little over half their value and effectively control them, I definitely would do that more often! Lol.
Did you find this while you were going down the rabbit holes?
I found the last paragraph interesting: Kakao M Corp. has unrivaled content production capabilities in mobile, TV, screen and live platforms having 7 leading talent management subsidiaries, 4 music labels and diverse drama, film, performance production companies. Kakao M Corp. has significant market share in Korea's music industry and annually produces over 1,200 titles. In addition, the company has 80 top creators, 150 celebrities as well as host of star producers within its talent portfolio. Kakao M also operates an in-house studio where Korea's most wanted producers were recruited to create and operate a novel genre of experimental and witty mobile contents.
I watch a lot of Chinese drama and Korean drama and, particularly with the Chinese drama a lot of their shows are taken from web novels and cartoons. As this looks to have production abilities all over the place one would be inclined to think that writing contracts would contain clauses regarding selling or optioning to companies other than Kakao. Not a bad thing, but not a good thing if an opportunity comes your way.
I'm wondering if this is there way to get more content under their control
I should invest in a popcorn company
I was discussing this with some others elsewhere... They wouldn't be gaining that mainly IP's in an acquisition, one report had it at 80, while they already have 8,500 IPs in their umbrella.
Feels more like them acquiring a North American distributor to push content they already control to me.
With Kakao rumored to be spending $889 million on acquisitions like Tapas and Radish, they most definitely have a plan.
That is a thought that crossed my mind. but I thought tapas had a near equal amount of IP so wouldn't they be doubling?
The article I read/quoted last night listed Tapas as having "80 intellectual property rights and 80,000 original works".
Those "original works" aren't directly acquirable by new ownership. Unless I'm missing something, that's all of us not locked into a contract.
Logic (and mine is often rather convoluted) says that they would obtain the works but have to honor the old Tapas contract until a new one from Kakao is offered. Otherwise what's the point of buying an empty company? Kind of like when a new landlord buys a building, they have to go by the old leases until they offer new ones or the option to move out.