Glad to hear it was solved. Hope you guys are able to come up with a better way to communicate your original intentions to the site, it was a really neat business idea and it's sad to see this huge drama and all these assumptions erupt over it, but hopefully it should calm down significantly now.
As we sit back and let this all play out, it seems to us that this drama is a symptom of a greater problem.
Yes we can understand creators getting upset about this language in the ToS. We flipped out weeks ago when it was first announced, went through the various phases of grief, and then decided to just live with it for the time being. As we pointed out, Tapas would have to subpoena our records to try to enforce such language and there's no way they would invest the time and resources in doing that. A big thanks as well to @elixiadragmire and @Louistrations for commiserating with us during that time.
Ultimately we decided it was a paper tiger. A paper tiger that has been since removed, regardless of intent.
Anyhow, as we mentioned above, this "blow out" are signs of a deeper issue.
If the patient comes in with facial pain you just don't assume there's an abscess and render a root canal or extract a tooth. What if it is a sinus infection? Trigeminal Neuralgia? Periodontal disease? No, you diagnose the problem and render appropriate treatment.
The patient is obviously in pain. Staff needs to get out the stethoscope and take a listen.
Staff has been incredibly busy. They've been balls to the wall hard on getting the open book publishing feature going for months now. It's time they consider taking a day off and just connect with the community. The CEO used to have video "State of the Union" speeches. There used to be a weekly podcast. By not investing in having an ongoing connection with the community, things have become this fragmented and have reached this level of distrust.
Staff should really take a beat to pause and do something were everyone can come to the table, voice their concerns, and feel like they are being heard. The Forums are intensely time inefficient. Instead they should consider doing some sort of open video forum where the CEO gets up, takes questions passed from Michael, Jessica, and Gabby monitored by a live feed and has an open dialogue with the community on where things are going and what improvements for the better need consideration.
Okay I can't get my thoughts on this matter properly stated on Twitter. @Whispwill of King's Folly made a point that removing the RoFR from the ToS is disadvantageous for small creators14 because we no longer have that offer on the table. My stance on it is that removing it from the ToS (and preferably placing the offer in a separate document) removes the obligation for a small time creator to ask Tapas for an offer. For example, if I pitched my comic to Hiveworks before the RoFR was removed (as some creators here likely have), I would be in breach of contract for not telling Tapas about it. More importantly, Hiveworks could reject the pitch because the RoFR in the Tapas ToS makes Tapas creators a liability for Hiveworks and other publishers. If I go to self-publish my comic, exercising (verbiage from the former ToS) the right to do so, Tapas might have the legal footing to sue for breach of contract. Not that they would, but the possibility exists. Frankly I'm in the habit of avoiding situations in which I could get sued. I'd like the ability to ask Tapas for an offer; the fact that they require it means that our rights as creators are limited.
The ability to make an offer is a good thing. The requirement to make the offer, for small time creators, is not. In theory the problem can be voided if every single small creators sent an email to Tapas asking for an offer, but....ew?
Really, what it boils down to is the fact that these terms were really vague.
* Does it apply to self-publishing?
* Does it apply to derivative works? For example, if you're trying to get a novel published that takes place in the same universe as your comic, do you have to give Tapas ROFR for that as well?
* Does the RoFR ever expire? Can I ask for an offer right now, and the (inevitable) refusal is permanent forever?
TBH, even if the intentions are good, this should probably be a thing the covers only premium series. Only the larger series will be affected by it beneficially anyway, whereas us little guys probably won't, but having it forced upon us puts us in precarious legal territory.
Didn't they used to do exactly that? Well, not exactly that, but the Q&A streams were a thing. It was not very efficient because the staff had to pick out which questions to answer as they went along. That meant some of the questions that got answered were jokes/ trivial things, rather than community concerns of actual importance.
I agree that communication is the bigger underlying issue here.
They did. But how long ago was that? Things have changed a ton since. Wasn't that last Q&A before tipping?
Tapas and The Community is like a couple. You don't go on one date. And just because a couple gets married doesn't mean Date Night ends.
Yeah the last Q&A got totally off course. If all parties approached it professionally as a "shareholders board meeting" rather than "beer pong party" it would achieve a lot more in a lot less time. The CEO is a freakin' busy guy. His time has to be respected.
Hey everyone,
Feedback has always been key to sculpting Tapas, both as a platform and community. We've spent all day listening to your comments, and have decided to remove The Right of First Refusal clause from our Terms of Service, effective immediately.
Tapas has always been a creator-first platform. Our goal is to provide tools to make publishing easier, including free hosting, ad revenue sharing, the tipping program, and more.
We've always maintained that creators retain 100% ownership when self-publishing with us, and our goal with the introduction of The Right of First Refusal clause was to give independent creators more leverage when entering into negotiations with other publishers.
We apologize for the misunderstanding, and will attempt to clarify remaining misconceptions in this thread. We value your continued support, feedback, and participation.
Best,
-Michael and Daron
Are you axe-ing the bargaining-chip idea entirely? or will this feature of the TOS come back in a less "scary" way in the future?
There's nothing stopping Tapas from making these offers to their users without legally strong-arming them into it when someone else shows interest.
Thank you.
I do still wish you would have answered my questions two weeks ago, but this works for now, too.
I do think GoldenPlume has some very good points as far as talking to the community.
Exactly. Which is why they are correcting the miscommunication that made people belive this was what they were doing.
It is unneccessary to still try to imply malicious intent. Tapas staff has removed the "offensive" part of the ToS. This was what the community requested.
goodness I missed a lot while I was asleep I am glad it got taken down , but at the same time why are people still fleeing from the site
Because that is how group mentality works.
Like I and several others suggested before, throughout and now after the drama, everyone just needs to chill a bit.
Can we take off our tinfoil hats for half a second? I know they're shiny and stylish but I think they're starting to blind everyone over whats going on here.
I dont think Tapastic staff was ever trying to screw people over here, if they were they probably would have done so in the several weeks that the RoFR clause was in the ToS and no one cared about it.
@PotooGryphon and @Kaykedrawsthings Both came in to explain the RoFR clause 2 weeks ago, literally no one had a problem with it until today. EDIT: Some people were mildly uncomfortorable with it, but not "im leaving tapastic forever" uncomfortorable with it.
Seriously, when has Tapastic EVER actively screwed one of their users over?
Okay - that kinda sucks. But recently (back in octoberish?) there was a similar sittuation where a new website was doing the same thing and lifting comics from tapastic/other places and staff played a pretty big role in taking that place down.
Actions speak louder than words I guess? I dunno,that might not be relevant. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
I would like to hear about Comic Panda's transgressions from the current staff. Did it come under new management who changed it to the Tapastic/Tapas brand and how we know them today?
I'll tag @michaelson for this, sorry if I'm bothering you Michael!
currently it seems like the Comic Panda thing is a big piece of evidence for the "TOS is trying to screw us over" theory. Thanks for asking 
Bonus question: has Tapastic done anything directly for the creators they hurt with the Comic Panda thing, or made any sort of public statements about it in the past?
I remember that other site lifting our comics. They took mine too. And Tapastic acted fast to stop them. I would like to hope the company has learned from their past mistakes. I would love to believe that they truly want to make a safe place for creators. But they also tried putting language in their TOS that conflicted with contracts I already had. Are people unreasonably scared about this? It really all depends on what people are trying to do with their comics. Letting a company use legalese to play around with creators' rights is a slippery slope and people absolutely have the right to be alarmed by it.
Creators are probably fine here, but the industry as a whole is very... well, prone to IP issues. People can stay or go as they please and shaming them for their reasons one way or another is really unfair. Tap claims this clause was meant to help creators but there was nothing stopping them from offering that option from the start rather than making it a barrier between a creator and an outside contract. In fact, I'm rather interested in as to how Tapastic has any idea what their creators were signing contracts for considering Tapastic would not have been involved in any way with said contracts. It would have been none of their business.
[side note] Mods are unpaid volunteers from the community. We aren't staffers, nor are we attached to Tapas in anyway. We have our own thoughts and opinions of situations and are allowed to voice them like everyone else in the community.
I honestly don't see anything mean spirited in Uzuki's comment, other than being frankly blunt honest. Leaving is a good option if you're unhappy with a site. Staying somewhere that makes you mad at each turn doesn't make much sense. It's healthy and empowering for us creators to keep in mind that we have this ability. Sites like Tapas are merely platform sites and it's possible for creators to build and grow a readership on any alternative site, collective, group, and/or your own personal site.
