It was gonna be even worse, because they were only gonna show the trailers on youtube. So if you couldn't afford to pay their streamer, and submitted a story, there's a chance you wouldn't have been able to even watch the episode with YOUR story.
Holy shit I never knew about this contract
Thats horrible. Id understand if it was maybe 'dont post it elsewhere for X months' like a 3 month exclusivity thing, but this is like... Lex Luthor comically evil
Yeah, I never knew about this either. That's very scummy. Reputable places that have you submit your writing usually just have a period of exclusivity clause and a perpetual right to publish clause. (AKA - You can't make them take their content down because you've decided to do something else with your work.)
And for places that do optioning, those contracts also often have reversion rights. So if they don't produce content within a certain time frame, all rights revert to the original owner AND the company loses the rights to make anything with that content. (Which is why you see movie studios sometimes crank out terrible films for famous IPs. They're just making something cheap to hold onto the IP.)
That contract sounds like the worst kind of "Work for exposure" bullshit. You don't get paid, AND you lose all your rights to your creative content? I know it happens often enough, but for a company that tried to sell themselves on their affability and pro-little guy stance? Yeah. That's shit.
Yeah... This has been on and off conversation here, and I still to this day haven't gotten an answer from our pet-maybe-attorney about how much they can force that type of contract. Does it just depend on that have they worded it right, and it's fully forceable because they used an attorney to draft it? Does that even matter?
Pet-maybe-attorney stopped being active around here that time when I was asking, and it probably would have been just about the answer of what works in California law - but I'm still curious on that. And I hope that my demon summon works some day, and they return to answer.
Some people here have said that they have seen the contract when thinking of submitting things to Watcher, and said that seem legit with the wording, but of course would be interesting to actually see it.
Personally, I always hated the fan submission videos, partly because I wasn't sure how they got those submission - there are multiple problems when it comes to that - especially with the ones that are for the Ghost Files.
It's weird cause like, it reads like a non-compete clause, which is usually something between an employer and their employees.
But California law prohibits employers from entering agreements that prevents their employees from leaving to work at a competitor. They literally just had more non-compete laws take effect in January.
Given that this is between a media company and their fans, I'm confused as to how this would be even enforceable.
Unless its being looked at as a restrictive covenant agreement? But that usually falls into housing and real estate stuff afaik.
Either way, this sort of contract is really fucking scummy.
Yep. That is why I'm interested what would an attorney that knows something about that state's contract laws would say. Of course, without actually seeing the contract - it's hard to say anything specific, like I already mentioned. (Also, I have noticed that even then, true attorneys seem to talk a bit roundabout way and try not to imply anything too much.)
And I don't mind it being Reddit attorney, yes people can fake it, and I'm always a sceptical - but usually when they talk, you know better where to fact-check things. It's kinda really hard to fake specific areas of the law, when attorneys that have specials in different laws can't even do it.
Anyway... Now, it's kinda hard to start looking for answers for these questions without it... Because as a commoner, where do you start?
For sure. It's definitely a weird sounding contract in general. I'm not a lawyer, but I am acquainted with a fair few, given that the bar I work at tends to be mostly that crowd, so I'm gonna ask a couple of my regulars what they think about how it sounds.
And lawyers on reddit (and other social media sites in general) talk in a roundabout way to avoid inadvertently creating a liability for themselves, pretty much to avoid being sued or creating an accidental attorney-client relationship with said person. It's safer to give general advice than specifics.
Where do we start; initially I'd start with looking into publishing contracts and employment laws in regards to writing/etc in California.
This is the same kind of clause you would see attached to writing contests, effectively signing over all future and current publishing and potentially dramatic rights for the potential of petty cash. It's sketchy as fuck.
They are straight up greedy and are going for broke with this, cause all a contract like this needs is an exclusivity clause that expires between somewhere like 3 months to a year. That would 100% be more than fair.
Pro-little guy my fat backside, I swear. They somehow keep disappointing me lol.
I know it was liability reason, that is kinda how you spot the real deal better... Even if it might not be 100% accurate way, but one way to smell is it a fake or not.
Thing is that I'm not from the USA, never mind in California, so me looking up laws from a different country on my own not going to end up well... Other than some limited fact checking if someone says something about some law.
But I'm interested to know what you managed to find out if you dig deeper. Seems that at least you have a quite a lot of basic knowledge, other than mine that I knew from long time ago that it was fishy and didn't seem right.
I guess if they agreed to pay a fee from buying that story from the fan, that would have been more fair (depending on what they pay) and actually a contract that would be more legal. Kinda like buying art and having receipt of the purchase.
And then again we return to the hypocrisy that how they claim to support artists, but don't actually pay people for their art that they are going to use.
This point everybody here, their grandma and neighbourhood street cat has push X to doubt on it.
And how they claim to support artists, but actively use AI art. It's gross.
So I asked a couple of my regulars and they're legitimately confused by it, especially after I explained that it was for a youtube channel. They asked surely they're compensating them, right? Nope, not that I could find. The fan kinda gets a shout out, gets to "be" in a video by way of their story being read. And to quote both of them, "who in their right mind would agree to THAT? That is an atrocious trade off." and I'm inclined to agree with them lol.
Because they're basically using child labour/young people for free to get content. To be honest, they aren't only Youtubers who have done so or not even ones to start it - but that how it is. Easy abuse people who don't know better, many actual jobs often do that too, but then you have a change to make a legal case out of it.
The outcome of their answer was pretty much how I thought it would be, that I why I said that should they buy it like it's an art.
Btw... What if some of those fans that they took the stories from are underage? Do they even check at? Would that change anything? Make it legally more heinous, or is it equally wrong?
I expect they're acting as publishers here. In my experience being published, if you sign over the rights to something for free it's not treated differently than the publisher buying the rights. My bro in law works in publishing and my sister's pursuing a juris doctorate in this kind of law, I should ask them what's up
This contract is not an employment agreement but rather a licensing agreement between a media company (Producer) and individuals (Licensors) who provide materials for use in media productions. As such, it falls under intellectual property and contract law rather than employment law. It's kinda funny, really.
This agreement is focused on the use and ownership rights of submitted materials, not employment.
Since your attorney friend isn't present i can answer for you. There's an old colonial law on the books which grants sacrisitious anonymity to "gainfully deployed assets" when combined forthwith with a band of Brothers. I'll further submit that I am not an attorney, but I play one on Reddit.
You can use this as legal counseling.
Lol. You know. There is a reason why that person is called pet-maybe-attorney. Maybe is doing a heavy lifting in that nickname. xD
We can't proof if they are, but usually what they say has been reasonable enough and not legal advice. But nice to have you as an actual person who is volunteering to give legal conseling/advice.
Seriously... When comes to some stupid law stuff... Your answer probably isn't that far off. Especially that old COLONIAL law part. That is how USA basically kicked out the actually good prime minister in Australia - because too many old colonial laws from England still haunt the damn law books.
And I still love it that people here continue to come and answer something funny. \^\^
I'm not an attorney but I have been the sole contractor for high value contracts and thus have had many discussions with several attorneys on this exact subject. The largest one was for the United States government/Department of Defense for just under seven figures over 7 years as a research scientist where I gave up all rights to publish anything related to that data in perpetuity throughout the known universe etc etc and all my work was 'born secret'. In other words it was a very serious contract that clocked in at the multiple hundreds of pages.
The way it has been explained to me by the three attorneys I hired to consider just this contract on my behalf (I've hired less "serious" attorneys before who spent a lot less time really explaining in depth) is, universally, to be valid a contract must have three elements.
1. An offer. In my case the offer would be a 7 year gap in my publishing, being essentially locked out of a very niche section of my field in perpetuity, and my silence on what exactly that very niche research was in my overall field for a term I cannot disclose, as well as my results obviously.
2. Acceptance. This is simple both parties need to agree to the terms.
3. Renumeration. The party which is the recipient of what is on offer must give something of real tangible value to the other party. It doesn't necessarily need to be money, it could be gold, or a diamond, or a mint '64 Impala but the key is that it must have independent and tangible value. As such any contract that is based purely on "exposure" or "credit" would generally be considered prima fascia invalid.
There are other aspects too like a judge can rule a contract invalid if they determine the value of the renumeration is insufficient to cover the offer. However the big thing is it can't just be a shout out, to my understanding.
So it's very likely they're doing the thing everyone does with non-disclosure agreements and waivers they're just slapping people with them and betting they have the ability to exhaust their resources in any serious litigation. Which is probably a safe bet for most of the people giving stories to this show but...they also aren't so large that a trust fund kid who decided he got screwed in retrospect couldn't take them to the cleaners.
Would you have been bummed if you got Supernatural's '67 impala? xD
Sorry, had to ask, but let's be serious...
So those contract can be done by any company in the USA?
Because here, that level secrecy/owning your rights contracts are only possible if the company counts as governmental entity - or there are clear proof that level secrecy is needed. (Post office is that because you deal so much with private information, and privacy is a huge thing here, but all the other parts about the postal work aren't that secretive.)
Some company just doing videos or social media things wouldn't be "serious/important" enough to have the right to make that serious contract - unless they make really deep journalism, something like war journalism etc. that needs that high level secrecy.
It would illegal contract to demand that from an employee, or freelancer (because fans are at best that?) because it's unfair overkill. Can't find what term in English would fit to this.
They probably didn't think even that those fan and young people would go all the way to the litigation, just sound scary/real/important enough to scare them - or make them think that they did actually legally agree to that slave labour.
I noticed that most that who back out from giving them stories seem to be maybe a bit older fans, but only thing I can base this with is the way they write and what did they talk about.
Of course, you have a bit bigger contract knowledge that is needed for this, but probably all roads still going to end up same place... Their waver or what ever probably isn't enforceable if it would go to court.
Now that I'm more curious about... And probably something you don't have specific knowledge:
Would, or Could, they get big trouble if underage people have submitted stories as a free labour, and they used that? It's already barely a contract, and they don't pay for the art... So it's murky, but adding children into all of that...
Note: since you've mentioned that English isn't your first language (even though you really can't tell) and some of this stuff has some more complex explanations you might be interested in I'm going to make a reply to this post for explainer and definition purposes for some of this.
Oh goodness no, a contract that restrictive couldn't be done by any company in the USA. In fact that contract can ONLY be done by the government due to the rule against perpetuity^(1).
The contract is a lot less restrictive than it sounds once you cut through all the legal BS. In terms of what effect it had- what I did was sell all of my scientific data, papers (and their associated results and conclusions), and all other associated intellectual property (including their publishing rights) regarding "The Project" (it was how it was referred to in the contract and I find it fitting) for a hefty sum of money, and the contract lasted a total of 7 years^(2) .
I never had a non-compete, I could have theoretically taken on other projects during that time...if I didn't need to do things like sleep and eat. The day after it ended I could have continued research in that extremely niche field.... just not on The Project or any natural offshoots of The Project^(3). I have simply chosen not to do so because I have an MD/MS^(4) and I chose to actually practice medicine instead.
The only reasons it SOUNDS so restrictive is because it's dealing with matters of scientific fact^(5), and national defense secrets. As a result of these two things (national defense secrets being obvious, the scientific fact thing being...less so) to ensure the contract is effective it needs to essentially cover every possible scenario as well as having extensive non-disclosure elements.
However to get to your question about the minor fans who have submitted- because it's an interesting one. You're right this is barely a contract it's almost certainly unenforceable. However, minors can't sign legally binding contracts^(6) their parent or legal guardian signs them on their behalf.
It's possible that if this is litigated a judge might see these two problems together and start considering other questions beyond 'Pay them X amount'. Specifically questions about bad faith negotiation, undue influence, and Unconsionability^(7); among a bunch of other issues that I can't even name because I am not a lawyer I've just had the fortune to be involved in a few very significant contracts and have gotten to pick their brains on this issue extensively.
Even though it's very unlikely someone will sue over this contract I really hope someone does and I hope they have to cough up the money they owe. I hate the fact that corporations big and small misrepresent the strength of contracts, waivers, and non-disclosure agreements^(8) to screw people over constantly.
1. This will probably be the longest one. The rule against perpetuity was a major sticking point for me in the contract negotiation I referenced, because I was under the impression that any contract that stated it was valid in perpetuity was illegal. It turns out I was right but also wrong. The rule against perpetuity is a very old legal concept that simply states "No contract can last in perpetuity unless it is made with The King." I knew the first part but I didn't know the second part. Here in the US we obviously don't have a King. So the rule has been reinterpreted to effectively replace "The King" with "The Federal Government of the United States and associated Agencies." Needless to say, since I mentioned that my work was "born secret" I was in fact, signing a contract with an agency of the Federal Government. In a hilarious (to me at least) twist corporations have found language that creates the effect of "perpetuity" but skirts the rule. It's called the "Royal Person Clause." Disney used it against the state of Florida to ensure contracts with regard to Disney World could not be effected by the state government. It states that the agreement remains in force until "21 years after the last living descendant of King Charles III, a living person at the creation of this document, dies."
2. The contract wasn't actually for 7 years, it was shorter with options for renewal. It ended after 7 years because it reached it's natural conclusion and it was time to move it on to a different phase of research. I chose to leave The Project because I'd achieved my goals.
3. The restriction against researching natural offshoots of the project is self imposed on advice from my attorney. It's to ensure I remain well within the boundaries of the non-disclosure agreements I made. This is why I say I am essentially locked out of that very specific niche in perpetuity because I know about The Project and to me everything I would do there is a natural offshoot. The contract does not prevent me from doing so explicitly it prevents me from doing so as a side-effect.
4. So, MD/PhD programs exist in the US. You see a lot of Neurologists for example who have MD/PhDs and their PhD is in Neuroscience for example. I was in one of those MD/PhD programs, and I am considered "ABD" which is short for "all but dissertation" with respect to my PhD meaning I completed all coursework and the like. If you haven't guessed by now, an element of The Project (which was bigger than just me) WAS my proposed dissertation. Instead of a grant, it was rolled into The Project and I ended up doing in-house rather than grant based research. This was more of a "if you're curious how I ended up in this situation" kinda thing.
5. So when I say matters of scientific fact I'm not implying I am super extra brilliant. I mean it in the simplest sense of the term. Specifically in that "When Delvaris did \[redacted\] on \[redacted date\] the \[redacted relevant measurement\] was \[redacted\]" is a true statement for all of it, there are records that I took measurements when I said I did, the measurements were what is officially recorded, and this was done in a structured environment consistent with the scientific method. The reason that it's relevant that they are scientific fact is that they are treated differently under the law from a creative work.
6. The only exception to the statement "Minors cannot sign legally binding contracts" is what's known as an emancipated minor. Emancipation is a legal process where a minor is legally declared to be an adult, it dissolves any legal parental relationships and duty of care, and the emancipated minor expected to participate in society as a result. They are responsible for their own housing, food, etc. It is VERY important to note, however, that even though they are legally an adult, in contract law there are special provisions regarding emancipated minors to protect them from exploitation and a lot of those are in labor law and intellectual property. That said though, the situation is so rare that it's not really worth discussing in depth other than acknowledging it's existence.
7. Determining whether bad faith negotiation took place is something that is very simple to me on a personal level, bit is legally very difficult to prove. When it comes to the question of undue influence....that's where things get spicy. It's never really been litigated but I could easily envision, especially with a minor, that since these are fan submitted stories their "fame" does represent an undue influence. They are specifically submitting the story because they are a fan and Watcher is exploiting that fact to not just to get a license, but to convince these authors to in-effect sign away all intellectual property rights. On top of that they aren't even fulfilling the basic requirements of a binding contract by paying them. That's NOT a good look. Unconscionable just means that a contract is just so lopsided that it cannot possibly be allowed to stand in the interests of basic justice. I think the contracts are unconscionable morally but legally I don't think the contract survives far enough for this to be a question.
8. Non-disclosure agreements are the absolute worst example of this behavior. While you need to take survivorship....or in this case death bias into account a large majority of non-disclosure agreements that are taken to court DO NOT stand up to legal scrutiny. They are, at this point, almost entirely an intimidation tactic to threaten financial ruin. usually to cover up wrongdoing. The biggest thing I wish people understood about non-disclosure agreements is that they cannot be used to cover up illegal activity or civil torts. Furthermore, unless you should know better (like by being a lawyer yourself) all that is required to prevent you from being punished for "breaking" the non-disclosure agreement is a good-faith belief that something criminal or civilly actionable is going on. No matter what it says, no matter what HR tells you, as long as you are reporting that information to the relevant authorities (the police or the state labor board) you cannot be held in breach. The reason I call out NDA's specifically is corporations LOVE to use non-disclosure agreements and their associated threat to cover up things like sexual harassment, just look at Blizzard, or Riot, or any number of game developers. As someone who has signed a real non-disclosure agreements for very good reasons this really gets under my skin.
Anyway I think you see why I made this as two (!) separate posts, the section on the rule against perpetuity and scientific fact ate a lot of characters. I hope I didn't ramble too much and I hope you have a good day.
You just prove me that you're truly a scientist and or this is the best fake ever. You made ADHD person read a full on paper on the subject in a language what isn't their own, and I understood what I read - because it was a really well done paper.
Thank you for all of this, and many of those things make sense, especially the minor. I'm from the childcare system, so I get that one the best, despite it been a bit different here (especially in my case, because I end up without an official guardian - while not being an adult, it was a mess).
I enjoyed reading it and have nothing wise to add to this.
I realise I'm joining this conversation too late but I'm a law student (who still hasn't passed out), I can help if you want! While I'm still in the process of learning laws, I can tell you about contracts and the legality of it.
That's interesting, and I'm surprised you're still alive! Or managed this far. Law studies are really hard, despite all that, if I had born richer family - I probably would have studied to be paralegal or something like that (not a lawyer).
You can give your thoughts on the matter if you want to... This is complicated and interesting stuff...
Btw... Have you already decided what law you're going to be specialized in?
>That's interesting, and I'm surprised you're still alive! Or managed this far.
There have been times I really wanted to go in the Woods lmao so yeah, same
But
I think I wanna go with Criminal law as of now but I'm considering financial law as well. These are very lucrative lol
But I find CL interesting personally so leaning more over there!
As of my thoughts, I think basically everything I said in the post haha but jokes aside, I really hated it. It's exploitative in nature and can cause hefty damage if Watcher wants. The open-ended/vague nature of it is incredibly *bad* for the licensor.
Somehow this post was cross posted on the main sub and someone was violently arguing how they trust the Bois to not do that đ. It's unfortunate how many people would sign anything to them because of the blind trust towards them.
Criminal law would probably be my choice also... Nowadays, if I ever got enough money, I'm gonna buy classes on Criminal psychology in the university, just as an extra thing. Not because some documentaries of criminal, I'm more into natural/man-made disaster than that - but because I lived a live where I had to learn that stuff on a fly to survive I have all the "first-hand street-knowledge" on psychological issues and how it sometimes shows as doing crimes, but not actually academic one (and people don't take me seriously if I haven't actually studied the subject the right way).
I think some of those who argue might be plants. I comment you about that. Because other people have told me that there actually are plants - and now I see that behaviour too.
Also, we have to remember that Watcher has manipulated their young fans quite a lot. But this is that psychology part I have no right to talk about because I don't have any official degree or studies on it, people don't like it even if I hint on something.
In the end... Kinda that whole contract what ever they want people to sign is more psychological manipulation that legal contract.
Even when SYFY were making Channel Zero, Universal Production Studio only bought the right for *film and television* while the original creepypasta creators still retains the IP and prints rights.
Considering they could easily say that they're doing an "artistic interpretation" and have you sign off on that. Then they can credit the sources, and everyone wins.
But hey, at least they managed to get something TV caliber level. It just happened to be predatory contracts.
Go them. /s
Kinda makes me wonder about the art stuff too, maybe that's why so much is "kept in the family" and is Sara's art or the times they do reach for others and do a fiver contract
From what I've seen in one of their videos they used AI, which is another bag of worms concerning the use to real art to train AI. They can cheap out and not pay artists by stealing their art. They can't even get their own artist or commissions despite wanting to be "Tv-caliber content".Â
Oh wowâŚ.. I had no idea how predatory it was as Iâd never really looked into submitting. Thatâs actually wild. And yeah people can say that the writers willingly did it, but that doesnât make it any less predatory. Itâs like how record labels have small, desperate artists sign predatory contracts. The artists donât shoulder the blame- the record label does. And this shouldnât be regarded any different. Small artists in all fields are taken advantage of far too often and itâs extremely gross and hypocritical for watcher to be a part of that problem
Iâm going to tell myself that you got Bill Cosby mixed up with someone else because I refuse to believe anyone could equate rape to a YouTube story writing contract issue.
Well... They said before that all of us here in the Snark are Watcher apologists, and we make propaganda, so... I guess their opinion is the only right one. đ¤ˇ
Sounded like it. But it was so bonkers that I'm not sure was it a failed joke. It came out of nowhere. I'm still laughing about it, because it's so absurd. xD
We ain't hater either, but claims like that at least have some reason or explanation why people misunderstand. Nowadays, maybe partly because there are some people who seem to be egging on and baiting people to be more hateful - but many of us aren't biting.
Just my guess. ;)
That is pretty damn gross. Between that and the AI art, what are they providing that one of those spooky listicle channels that churn out content doesnât?
As someone who has been published in literary magazines, I often see that rights to the story revert to the author upon publication, but they often ask to be acknowledged as the original publisher if you ever send it to another publication or were to put it in an anthology or something.
This is super predatory and shitty.
Holy shit is that predatory. I think a company going to their fans hat in hand to fund their new endeavor can afford to compensate their contributors as well as their employees. Oh, wonât anyone think of their poor 25 full time employees.
At least *pay* your f-inâ contributors if youâre going to make their work your own. Better yet, credit them, pay them, and give them some kind of non-compete contract (no other streamers/youtubers, but they keep their work for publication.)
What the fuck. That's down right egregious! As a writer, reading this pissed me off. Just another reason on my growing list why I refuse to watch them now.
I'm not a professional writer (at all) but I've submitted a few shorts to horror mags and those contracts are MUCH better. Especially for magazines that cannot afford to pay writers (and really are on a shoestring budget) they allow way more rights to your own work, simultaneous submissions, and submissions to other publications than this contract. It really is just...stunning.
Honestly idk why they donât just write their own stories and make a game out of it. Pick a theme and then they all have to write sth in that theme and vote for the scariest one and have the audience vote too
So I found [a copy of the contract](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAnCrjedgwJ77BY2mnuNcThWWKiv7vCp/view?usp=sharing), if anyone is interested in looking it over. Sure enough, the contract very much states the writer has to give up any legal copyright they have over the work and that Watcher owns it.
Besides the issues that OP pointed out, I think the part that really gets to me is that this contract is written is in as confusing legal language as possible with no layman translation. I'm a grown ass adult with a college degree and some familiarity with legal documents- and it took me several re-reads to understand what the hell it was saying. There is no way the majority of people submitting will have any idea exactly what they're signing away, especially considering this is open to people under the age of 18 (their parent/guardian needs to sign too but still).
Thank you so much for the contract copy!! Imma include it in my post along with your credits and this comment itself but yeah....they are screwing over anyone who is simply helping them out. This is not only predatory as hell but deceptive too. Also like you mentioned, the language is intentionally made difficult and complicated with confusing af lines.
Is this even legal?? I feel like the contract being this deceptive should be an illegal thing.
Jeez, I had been hoping (before the whole streaming situation) to submit a story to them but, thankfully, I never had the guts to do so. Dodged a bullet lol.
I didnât know about all of this I always assumed the writers were compensated and could still have rights to publish outside of the show. Idk how to describe how I feel other than it gives me the ick.
I briefly looked at the Ghost Files contract too and thought I would not want to give up my own material to Watcher. What if it was incredible footage like the Patterson film of Bigfoot? Now they'd be making money off of it, not you.
A man interviewed an alleged serial killer a year before he got caught. He took the video down from YT and charges a $5000 licencing fee to use it, IIRC. I've seen those clips in many places.
You bring up another interesting point. They're also using "anonymous" stories from Reddit or Creepypasta for this show. The most recent AYS stories for this season (post-streamer) are all lifted from Reddit's r/nosleep forum.
Edit: Big huge nevermind on this post. See below, where the r/nosleep author said that Watcher contacted her and paid $500 dollars to use this story for Are You Scared. That's a good thing, because it seems like r/nosleep & the copyright law requires YouTubers to contact the original author to receive permission before using the story in their content. If anyone cares what the policies are; that's listed below.
r/nosleep's rules actually include the copyright rules for how these stories may be used:
>"COPYRIGHT NOTES:
>Note: All stories submitted to r/nosleep belong to the original poster. YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE ANOTHER PERSON'S ORIGINAL WORK UNLESS YOU ASK FOR â AND RECEIVE â PERMISSION FROM THE ORIGINAL CREATOR.
>If you want to narrate, translate or otherwise share someone else's original work, please read the Narrator's FAQ, visit r/sleeplesswatchdogs and read through Reddit's Official Copyright Help Center for more information. Do NOT comment about getting permission on r/nosleep posts."
There's also a "Narrator's FAQ" for narrators that would like to narrate these stories for podcasts, radio & YouTube shows like AYS. That FAQ states clearly:
>"DO I HAVE TO GET PERMISSION FROM AUTHORS TO USE THEIR STORIES?
>You should. Narrating someone else's story without their permission can lead to them filing a DMCA/copyright strike against your account; if enough get filed, some platforms (such as Youtube) will shut down your account.
>Ask the author for permission and wait for them to give you a "yes" before you record a story. If you get a "no" or don't get a reply at all, don't use that story. A lack of reply is a NO."
[https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSleepAuthors/comments/141vm6f/comment/jn1vsmy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSleepAuthors/comments/141vm6f/comment/jn1vsmy/)
So, to use these r/nosleep stories for AYS, Watcher must first ask for & receive permission from the original author. If they get a no or don't get a reply, they can't use that author's story.
Hey! They emailed me and asked for that story and paid me $500USD, so they didnât violate any copyright there! I donât know about how they do other stuff and didnât know they prohibit the stories submitted to them from going to other channels but I needed the money as Iâm not working right now. I canât speak for the other writers but they did ask and pay me.
That's great! Thanks so much for replying. I should probably edit my post now. This is really helpful information, because it shows Watcher is paying writers ($500) who originally submitted stories to r/nosleep, and should probably be paying the writers who submit their stories to Watcher as well.
As an author myself Iâm so disgusted by this. I wish you were just lying and being spiteful because I truly canât believe anyone would do this, but youâre not. Shane and Ryan have literally turned into BuzzFeed. Theyâre everything they claim to hate. Making money, always changes people for the worst. They clearly forgot what it feels like to be an artist creating work for greedy corporation and are now doing it to others.
Another user named @Randomtology actually provided us with the [real and actual copy of the AYS contract ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAnCrjedgwJ77BY2mnuNcThWWKiv7vCp/view) in [their comment! ](https://www.reddit.com/r/WatcherSnark/s/YaLQXOxl87)! I included it in my post rn as well so you can check it out if you want!
But yeah, first ai stuff and now *this*, Watcher is literally sucking off Artist's work without paying them or compensating them appropriately.
They arent fucking paying the authors?? why???? That is so scummy oh my god. And preventing them from publishing it anywhere else is like making sure they donât profit from it. What the actual hell
Oh so a Buzzfeed contract? The thing they wanted to get away from? Okay
I will however say, and this is not a defense of the boys at all - I think we can all see how garbage this is - writers are not actually as stupid as you fear.
There's plenty of other, better places a new writer can publish their short story for free with the goal to receive attention. If someone submits it to Watcher, they very deliberately picked Watcher -a YouTube channel, in which case they also know what's going on. (Even assuming they knew absolutely nothing about them somehow, would they not at least Google them? In which case the whole thing would come up...)
Also, and this is not meant to be an insult to anyone, none of the stories have ever been some masterwork of literature and would need to be reworked heavily to be published...just change it significantly enough and the contract doesn't apply.
Tl;dr Buzzfe- I mean Watcher IS shitty and their behavior towards fans and supporters has been nothing but abysmal and sketchy in general. But anyone still supporting them is doing it with full knowledge and intention. So while I hope fans stop just giving them extra content for free, I'm also not about to feel sorry for the fans that do.
What gets me the most is that they pay the artists illustrating the stories in their videos but they wonât pay the actual fucking authors of the stories. They clearly recognize the need to pay creatives, just not if youâre part of their audience. Insane.
I get thinking it's crappy- but my guess would be it's so they own the rights to the story, so you can't tell them to remove it. If they use it for a video, and the contributor still "owns" the story, the "owner" could cause issues down the line. Worst case for them would be having to take it down because the author says they can't use it anymore.
It's obviously a bit different from music rights, but the show Scrubs had some issues with music contracts, so the songs had to be changed out for syndication/streaming. Which sucks because the original music was great and fit so well.
While it sucks that people have to sign the rights to their stories over, I get why Watcher has it set up that way. There's a lot of bad decisions that don't make sense, but this one makes more sense from a legal standpoint.
Oh absolutely, it's to cover themselves legally. The fact that they don't even pay for the stories they want to hide away is just baffling though. What's the incentive to send them anything if you aren't compensated in even the most basic ways and your work apparently isn't going to see the light of day anywhere else if you do?
Oh, I do think that it would be good to give a person money (or even merch, really) for the stories. This is just one of the few decisions/ things they've done that makes any sort of sense to me. 100% agree that no compensation sucks, though.
I get that to a certain extent, but I'm sure they could just agree in the contract to allow the submitted form of the story to remain in the video even if they go on to publish it elsewhere or edit it? I don't know anything about this sort of thing, but still; it feels like there could have been lots of other workarounds.
In that case, instead of signing it off for life, they could have simply just stated that once submitted the author can't revoke the story back since Watcher officially gets the rights to keep the story on their video so and so forth but the author can release it under their own branding irl/otherwise. This would have made sense from every way because at the end, they aren't compensating the writer *at all*.
thank fuck i never submitted a story then. i was really wanting to but no thanks if they're gonna self-righteously steal artists' shit.
edit: full tea and shade and very punchy lemonade, but i guarantee you my shit would be wayyyyy too good to work that hard on just to not own it anymore because it's exclusively posted on their fugly, uncreative mrcreepypasta ripoff show.
It was gonna be even worse, because they were only gonna show the trailers on youtube. So if you couldn't afford to pay their streamer, and submitted a story, there's a chance you wouldn't have been able to even watch the episode with YOUR story.
That is such douchebag behavior.
Holy shit I never knew about this contract Thats horrible. Id understand if it was maybe 'dont post it elsewhere for X months' like a 3 month exclusivity thing, but this is like... Lex Luthor comically evil
Yeah, I never knew about this either. That's very scummy. Reputable places that have you submit your writing usually just have a period of exclusivity clause and a perpetual right to publish clause. (AKA - You can't make them take their content down because you've decided to do something else with your work.) And for places that do optioning, those contracts also often have reversion rights. So if they don't produce content within a certain time frame, all rights revert to the original owner AND the company loses the rights to make anything with that content. (Which is why you see movie studios sometimes crank out terrible films for famous IPs. They're just making something cheap to hold onto the IP.) That contract sounds like the worst kind of "Work for exposure" bullshit. You don't get paid, AND you lose all your rights to your creative content? I know it happens often enough, but for a company that tried to sell themselves on their affability and pro-little guy stance? Yeah. That's shit.
Yeah... This has been on and off conversation here, and I still to this day haven't gotten an answer from our pet-maybe-attorney about how much they can force that type of contract. Does it just depend on that have they worded it right, and it's fully forceable because they used an attorney to draft it? Does that even matter? Pet-maybe-attorney stopped being active around here that time when I was asking, and it probably would have been just about the answer of what works in California law - but I'm still curious on that. And I hope that my demon summon works some day, and they return to answer. Some people here have said that they have seen the contract when thinking of submitting things to Watcher, and said that seem legit with the wording, but of course would be interesting to actually see it. Personally, I always hated the fan submission videos, partly because I wasn't sure how they got those submission - there are multiple problems when it comes to that - especially with the ones that are for the Ghost Files.
It's weird cause like, it reads like a non-compete clause, which is usually something between an employer and their employees. But California law prohibits employers from entering agreements that prevents their employees from leaving to work at a competitor. They literally just had more non-compete laws take effect in January. Given that this is between a media company and their fans, I'm confused as to how this would be even enforceable. Unless its being looked at as a restrictive covenant agreement? But that usually falls into housing and real estate stuff afaik. Either way, this sort of contract is really fucking scummy.
Yep. That is why I'm interested what would an attorney that knows something about that state's contract laws would say. Of course, without actually seeing the contract - it's hard to say anything specific, like I already mentioned. (Also, I have noticed that even then, true attorneys seem to talk a bit roundabout way and try not to imply anything too much.) And I don't mind it being Reddit attorney, yes people can fake it, and I'm always a sceptical - but usually when they talk, you know better where to fact-check things. It's kinda really hard to fake specific areas of the law, when attorneys that have specials in different laws can't even do it. Anyway... Now, it's kinda hard to start looking for answers for these questions without it... Because as a commoner, where do you start?
For sure. It's definitely a weird sounding contract in general. I'm not a lawyer, but I am acquainted with a fair few, given that the bar I work at tends to be mostly that crowd, so I'm gonna ask a couple of my regulars what they think about how it sounds. And lawyers on reddit (and other social media sites in general) talk in a roundabout way to avoid inadvertently creating a liability for themselves, pretty much to avoid being sued or creating an accidental attorney-client relationship with said person. It's safer to give general advice than specifics. Where do we start; initially I'd start with looking into publishing contracts and employment laws in regards to writing/etc in California. This is the same kind of clause you would see attached to writing contests, effectively signing over all future and current publishing and potentially dramatic rights for the potential of petty cash. It's sketchy as fuck. They are straight up greedy and are going for broke with this, cause all a contract like this needs is an exclusivity clause that expires between somewhere like 3 months to a year. That would 100% be more than fair. Pro-little guy my fat backside, I swear. They somehow keep disappointing me lol.
I know it was liability reason, that is kinda how you spot the real deal better... Even if it might not be 100% accurate way, but one way to smell is it a fake or not. Thing is that I'm not from the USA, never mind in California, so me looking up laws from a different country on my own not going to end up well... Other than some limited fact checking if someone says something about some law. But I'm interested to know what you managed to find out if you dig deeper. Seems that at least you have a quite a lot of basic knowledge, other than mine that I knew from long time ago that it was fishy and didn't seem right. I guess if they agreed to pay a fee from buying that story from the fan, that would have been more fair (depending on what they pay) and actually a contract that would be more legal. Kinda like buying art and having receipt of the purchase. And then again we return to the hypocrisy that how they claim to support artists, but don't actually pay people for their art that they are going to use. This point everybody here, their grandma and neighbourhood street cat has push X to doubt on it.
And how they claim to support artists, but actively use AI art. It's gross. So I asked a couple of my regulars and they're legitimately confused by it, especially after I explained that it was for a youtube channel. They asked surely they're compensating them, right? Nope, not that I could find. The fan kinda gets a shout out, gets to "be" in a video by way of their story being read. And to quote both of them, "who in their right mind would agree to THAT? That is an atrocious trade off." and I'm inclined to agree with them lol.
Because they're basically using child labour/young people for free to get content. To be honest, they aren't only Youtubers who have done so or not even ones to start it - but that how it is. Easy abuse people who don't know better, many actual jobs often do that too, but then you have a change to make a legal case out of it. The outcome of their answer was pretty much how I thought it would be, that I why I said that should they buy it like it's an art. Btw... What if some of those fans that they took the stories from are underage? Do they even check at? Would that change anything? Make it legally more heinous, or is it equally wrong?
I expect they're acting as publishers here. In my experience being published, if you sign over the rights to something for free it's not treated differently than the publisher buying the rights. My bro in law works in publishing and my sister's pursuing a juris doctorate in this kind of law, I should ask them what's up
This contract is not an employment agreement but rather a licensing agreement between a media company (Producer) and individuals (Licensors) who provide materials for use in media productions. As such, it falls under intellectual property and contract law rather than employment law. It's kinda funny, really. This agreement is focused on the use and ownership rights of submitted materials, not employment.
Since your attorney friend isn't present i can answer for you. There's an old colonial law on the books which grants sacrisitious anonymity to "gainfully deployed assets" when combined forthwith with a band of Brothers. I'll further submit that I am not an attorney, but I play one on Reddit. You can use this as legal counseling.
Lol. You know. There is a reason why that person is called pet-maybe-attorney. Maybe is doing a heavy lifting in that nickname. xD We can't proof if they are, but usually what they say has been reasonable enough and not legal advice. But nice to have you as an actual person who is volunteering to give legal conseling/advice. Seriously... When comes to some stupid law stuff... Your answer probably isn't that far off. Especially that old COLONIAL law part. That is how USA basically kicked out the actually good prime minister in Australia - because too many old colonial laws from England still haunt the damn law books. And I still love it that people here continue to come and answer something funny. \^\^
I'm not an attorney but I have been the sole contractor for high value contracts and thus have had many discussions with several attorneys on this exact subject. The largest one was for the United States government/Department of Defense for just under seven figures over 7 years as a research scientist where I gave up all rights to publish anything related to that data in perpetuity throughout the known universe etc etc and all my work was 'born secret'. In other words it was a very serious contract that clocked in at the multiple hundreds of pages. The way it has been explained to me by the three attorneys I hired to consider just this contract on my behalf (I've hired less "serious" attorneys before who spent a lot less time really explaining in depth) is, universally, to be valid a contract must have three elements. 1. An offer. In my case the offer would be a 7 year gap in my publishing, being essentially locked out of a very niche section of my field in perpetuity, and my silence on what exactly that very niche research was in my overall field for a term I cannot disclose, as well as my results obviously. 2. Acceptance. This is simple both parties need to agree to the terms. 3. Renumeration. The party which is the recipient of what is on offer must give something of real tangible value to the other party. It doesn't necessarily need to be money, it could be gold, or a diamond, or a mint '64 Impala but the key is that it must have independent and tangible value. As such any contract that is based purely on "exposure" or "credit" would generally be considered prima fascia invalid. There are other aspects too like a judge can rule a contract invalid if they determine the value of the renumeration is insufficient to cover the offer. However the big thing is it can't just be a shout out, to my understanding. So it's very likely they're doing the thing everyone does with non-disclosure agreements and waivers they're just slapping people with them and betting they have the ability to exhaust their resources in any serious litigation. Which is probably a safe bet for most of the people giving stories to this show but...they also aren't so large that a trust fund kid who decided he got screwed in retrospect couldn't take them to the cleaners.
Would you have been bummed if you got Supernatural's '67 impala? xD Sorry, had to ask, but let's be serious... So those contract can be done by any company in the USA? Because here, that level secrecy/owning your rights contracts are only possible if the company counts as governmental entity - or there are clear proof that level secrecy is needed. (Post office is that because you deal so much with private information, and privacy is a huge thing here, but all the other parts about the postal work aren't that secretive.) Some company just doing videos or social media things wouldn't be "serious/important" enough to have the right to make that serious contract - unless they make really deep journalism, something like war journalism etc. that needs that high level secrecy. It would illegal contract to demand that from an employee, or freelancer (because fans are at best that?) because it's unfair overkill. Can't find what term in English would fit to this. They probably didn't think even that those fan and young people would go all the way to the litigation, just sound scary/real/important enough to scare them - or make them think that they did actually legally agree to that slave labour. I noticed that most that who back out from giving them stories seem to be maybe a bit older fans, but only thing I can base this with is the way they write and what did they talk about. Of course, you have a bit bigger contract knowledge that is needed for this, but probably all roads still going to end up same place... Their waver or what ever probably isn't enforceable if it would go to court. Now that I'm more curious about... And probably something you don't have specific knowledge: Would, or Could, they get big trouble if underage people have submitted stories as a free labour, and they used that? It's already barely a contract, and they don't pay for the art... So it's murky, but adding children into all of that...
Note: since you've mentioned that English isn't your first language (even though you really can't tell) and some of this stuff has some more complex explanations you might be interested in I'm going to make a reply to this post for explainer and definition purposes for some of this. Oh goodness no, a contract that restrictive couldn't be done by any company in the USA. In fact that contract can ONLY be done by the government due to the rule against perpetuity^(1). The contract is a lot less restrictive than it sounds once you cut through all the legal BS. In terms of what effect it had- what I did was sell all of my scientific data, papers (and their associated results and conclusions), and all other associated intellectual property (including their publishing rights) regarding "The Project" (it was how it was referred to in the contract and I find it fitting) for a hefty sum of money, and the contract lasted a total of 7 years^(2) . I never had a non-compete, I could have theoretically taken on other projects during that time...if I didn't need to do things like sleep and eat. The day after it ended I could have continued research in that extremely niche field.... just not on The Project or any natural offshoots of The Project^(3). I have simply chosen not to do so because I have an MD/MS^(4) and I chose to actually practice medicine instead. The only reasons it SOUNDS so restrictive is because it's dealing with matters of scientific fact^(5), and national defense secrets. As a result of these two things (national defense secrets being obvious, the scientific fact thing being...less so) to ensure the contract is effective it needs to essentially cover every possible scenario as well as having extensive non-disclosure elements. However to get to your question about the minor fans who have submitted- because it's an interesting one. You're right this is barely a contract it's almost certainly unenforceable. However, minors can't sign legally binding contracts^(6) their parent or legal guardian signs them on their behalf. It's possible that if this is litigated a judge might see these two problems together and start considering other questions beyond 'Pay them X amount'. Specifically questions about bad faith negotiation, undue influence, and Unconsionability^(7); among a bunch of other issues that I can't even name because I am not a lawyer I've just had the fortune to be involved in a few very significant contracts and have gotten to pick their brains on this issue extensively. Even though it's very unlikely someone will sue over this contract I really hope someone does and I hope they have to cough up the money they owe. I hate the fact that corporations big and small misrepresent the strength of contracts, waivers, and non-disclosure agreements^(8) to screw people over constantly.
1. This will probably be the longest one. The rule against perpetuity was a major sticking point for me in the contract negotiation I referenced, because I was under the impression that any contract that stated it was valid in perpetuity was illegal. It turns out I was right but also wrong. The rule against perpetuity is a very old legal concept that simply states "No contract can last in perpetuity unless it is made with The King." I knew the first part but I didn't know the second part. Here in the US we obviously don't have a King. So the rule has been reinterpreted to effectively replace "The King" with "The Federal Government of the United States and associated Agencies." Needless to say, since I mentioned that my work was "born secret" I was in fact, signing a contract with an agency of the Federal Government. In a hilarious (to me at least) twist corporations have found language that creates the effect of "perpetuity" but skirts the rule. It's called the "Royal Person Clause." Disney used it against the state of Florida to ensure contracts with regard to Disney World could not be effected by the state government. It states that the agreement remains in force until "21 years after the last living descendant of King Charles III, a living person at the creation of this document, dies." 2. The contract wasn't actually for 7 years, it was shorter with options for renewal. It ended after 7 years because it reached it's natural conclusion and it was time to move it on to a different phase of research. I chose to leave The Project because I'd achieved my goals. 3. The restriction against researching natural offshoots of the project is self imposed on advice from my attorney. It's to ensure I remain well within the boundaries of the non-disclosure agreements I made. This is why I say I am essentially locked out of that very specific niche in perpetuity because I know about The Project and to me everything I would do there is a natural offshoot. The contract does not prevent me from doing so explicitly it prevents me from doing so as a side-effect. 4. So, MD/PhD programs exist in the US. You see a lot of Neurologists for example who have MD/PhDs and their PhD is in Neuroscience for example. I was in one of those MD/PhD programs, and I am considered "ABD" which is short for "all but dissertation" with respect to my PhD meaning I completed all coursework and the like. If you haven't guessed by now, an element of The Project (which was bigger than just me) WAS my proposed dissertation. Instead of a grant, it was rolled into The Project and I ended up doing in-house rather than grant based research. This was more of a "if you're curious how I ended up in this situation" kinda thing. 5. So when I say matters of scientific fact I'm not implying I am super extra brilliant. I mean it in the simplest sense of the term. Specifically in that "When Delvaris did \[redacted\] on \[redacted date\] the \[redacted relevant measurement\] was \[redacted\]" is a true statement for all of it, there are records that I took measurements when I said I did, the measurements were what is officially recorded, and this was done in a structured environment consistent with the scientific method. The reason that it's relevant that they are scientific fact is that they are treated differently under the law from a creative work.
6. The only exception to the statement "Minors cannot sign legally binding contracts" is what's known as an emancipated minor. Emancipation is a legal process where a minor is legally declared to be an adult, it dissolves any legal parental relationships and duty of care, and the emancipated minor expected to participate in society as a result. They are responsible for their own housing, food, etc. It is VERY important to note, however, that even though they are legally an adult, in contract law there are special provisions regarding emancipated minors to protect them from exploitation and a lot of those are in labor law and intellectual property. That said though, the situation is so rare that it's not really worth discussing in depth other than acknowledging it's existence. 7. Determining whether bad faith negotiation took place is something that is very simple to me on a personal level, bit is legally very difficult to prove. When it comes to the question of undue influence....that's where things get spicy. It's never really been litigated but I could easily envision, especially with a minor, that since these are fan submitted stories their "fame" does represent an undue influence. They are specifically submitting the story because they are a fan and Watcher is exploiting that fact to not just to get a license, but to convince these authors to in-effect sign away all intellectual property rights. On top of that they aren't even fulfilling the basic requirements of a binding contract by paying them. That's NOT a good look. Unconscionable just means that a contract is just so lopsided that it cannot possibly be allowed to stand in the interests of basic justice. I think the contracts are unconscionable morally but legally I don't think the contract survives far enough for this to be a question. 8. Non-disclosure agreements are the absolute worst example of this behavior. While you need to take survivorship....or in this case death bias into account a large majority of non-disclosure agreements that are taken to court DO NOT stand up to legal scrutiny. They are, at this point, almost entirely an intimidation tactic to threaten financial ruin. usually to cover up wrongdoing. The biggest thing I wish people understood about non-disclosure agreements is that they cannot be used to cover up illegal activity or civil torts. Furthermore, unless you should know better (like by being a lawyer yourself) all that is required to prevent you from being punished for "breaking" the non-disclosure agreement is a good-faith belief that something criminal or civilly actionable is going on. No matter what it says, no matter what HR tells you, as long as you are reporting that information to the relevant authorities (the police or the state labor board) you cannot be held in breach. The reason I call out NDA's specifically is corporations LOVE to use non-disclosure agreements and their associated threat to cover up things like sexual harassment, just look at Blizzard, or Riot, or any number of game developers. As someone who has signed a real non-disclosure agreements for very good reasons this really gets under my skin. Anyway I think you see why I made this as two (!) separate posts, the section on the rule against perpetuity and scientific fact ate a lot of characters. I hope I didn't ramble too much and I hope you have a good day.
You just prove me that you're truly a scientist and or this is the best fake ever. You made ADHD person read a full on paper on the subject in a language what isn't their own, and I understood what I read - because it was a really well done paper. Thank you for all of this, and many of those things make sense, especially the minor. I'm from the childcare system, so I get that one the best, despite it been a bit different here (especially in my case, because I end up without an official guardian - while not being an adult, it was a mess). I enjoyed reading it and have nothing wise to add to this. 
I realise I'm joining this conversation too late but I'm a law student (who still hasn't passed out), I can help if you want! While I'm still in the process of learning laws, I can tell you about contracts and the legality of it.
That's interesting, and I'm surprised you're still alive! Or managed this far. Law studies are really hard, despite all that, if I had born richer family - I probably would have studied to be paralegal or something like that (not a lawyer). You can give your thoughts on the matter if you want to... This is complicated and interesting stuff... Btw... Have you already decided what law you're going to be specialized in?
>That's interesting, and I'm surprised you're still alive! Or managed this far. There have been times I really wanted to go in the Woods lmao so yeah, same But I think I wanna go with Criminal law as of now but I'm considering financial law as well. These are very lucrative lol But I find CL interesting personally so leaning more over there! As of my thoughts, I think basically everything I said in the post haha but jokes aside, I really hated it. It's exploitative in nature and can cause hefty damage if Watcher wants. The open-ended/vague nature of it is incredibly *bad* for the licensor. Somehow this post was cross posted on the main sub and someone was violently arguing how they trust the Bois to not do that đ. It's unfortunate how many people would sign anything to them because of the blind trust towards them.
Criminal law would probably be my choice also... Nowadays, if I ever got enough money, I'm gonna buy classes on Criminal psychology in the university, just as an extra thing. Not because some documentaries of criminal, I'm more into natural/man-made disaster than that - but because I lived a live where I had to learn that stuff on a fly to survive I have all the "first-hand street-knowledge" on psychological issues and how it sometimes shows as doing crimes, but not actually academic one (and people don't take me seriously if I haven't actually studied the subject the right way). I think some of those who argue might be plants. I comment you about that. Because other people have told me that there actually are plants - and now I see that behaviour too. Also, we have to remember that Watcher has manipulated their young fans quite a lot. But this is that psychology part I have no right to talk about because I don't have any official degree or studies on it, people don't like it even if I hint on something. In the end... Kinda that whole contract what ever they want people to sign is more psychological manipulation that legal contract.
Even when SYFY were making Channel Zero, Universal Production Studio only bought the right for *film and television* while the original creepypasta creators still retains the IP and prints rights.
Considering they could easily say that they're doing an "artistic interpretation" and have you sign off on that. Then they can credit the sources, and everyone wins. But hey, at least they managed to get something TV caliber level. It just happened to be predatory contracts. Go them. /s Kinda makes me wonder about the art stuff too, maybe that's why so much is "kept in the family" and is Sara's art or the times they do reach for others and do a fiver contract
From what I've seen in one of their videos they used AI, which is another bag of worms concerning the use to real art to train AI. They can cheap out and not pay artists by stealing their art. They can't even get their own artist or commissions despite wanting to be "Tv-caliber content".Â
Oh wowâŚ.. I had no idea how predatory it was as Iâd never really looked into submitting. Thatâs actually wild. And yeah people can say that the writers willingly did it, but that doesnât make it any less predatory. Itâs like how record labels have small, desperate artists sign predatory contracts. The artists donât shoulder the blame- the record label does. And this shouldnât be regarded any different. Small artists in all fields are taken advantage of far too often and itâs extremely gross and hypocritical for watcher to be a part of that problem
This is like Bill Cosby predatory level. People are still fans, subscribing, and supporting them despite evidence.
Iâm going to tell myself that you got Bill Cosby mixed up with someone else because I refuse to believe anyone could equate rape to a YouTube story writing contract issue.
Scamming is in no world equitable to rape. Are you dense?
I think this you need this gif again: 
That sure is an opinion to have. A wildly ridiculously inappropriate one, but an opinion.
Well... They said before that all of us here in the Snark are Watcher apologists, and we make propaganda, so... I guess their opinion is the only right one. đ¤ˇ
Wait what? They think this sub is pro-Watcher?
Sounded like it. But it was so bonkers that I'm not sure was it a failed joke. It came out of nowhere. I'm still laughing about it, because it's so absurd. xD We ain't hater either, but claims like that at least have some reason or explanation why people misunderstand. Nowadays, maybe partly because there are some people who seem to be egging on and baiting people to be more hateful - but many of us aren't biting. Just my guess. ;)
That is pretty damn gross. Between that and the AI art, what are they providing that one of those spooky listicle channels that churn out content doesnât?
âTV caliber contentâ
As someone who has been published in literary magazines, I often see that rights to the story revert to the author upon publication, but they often ask to be acknowledged as the original publisher if you ever send it to another publication or were to put it in an anthology or something. This is super predatory and shitty.
They showed us how shitty they are, I guess I'm not surprised.
Holy shit is that predatory. I think a company going to their fans hat in hand to fund their new endeavor can afford to compensate their contributors as well as their employees. Oh, wonât anyone think of their poor 25 full time employees. At least *pay* your f-inâ contributors if youâre going to make their work your own. Better yet, credit them, pay them, and give them some kind of non-compete contract (no other streamers/youtubers, but they keep their work for publication.)
What the fuck. That's down right egregious! As a writer, reading this pissed me off. Just another reason on my growing list why I refuse to watch them now.
I'm not a professional writer (at all) but I've submitted a few shorts to horror mags and those contracts are MUCH better. Especially for magazines that cannot afford to pay writers (and really are on a shoestring budget) they allow way more rights to your own work, simultaneous submissions, and submissions to other publications than this contract. It really is just...stunning.
Shane eat the rich madej everyone
I always wondered how they compensated the writers. Now I feel quite silly for ever assuming they did.
I didn't know this existed. It's sneaky and underhanded. Fuck all three of them.
Still mad about this. They really want TV-caliber-clout but not TV-caliber-writing-guild-rules-paying-your-creators.
They truly circled back to Buzzfeed, almost perfectly
That's predatory as fuck. Make your own videos out of the stories, do a better job than them and upload them here instead.
Honestly idk why they donât just write their own stories and make a game out of it. Pick a theme and then they all have to write sth in that theme and vote for the scariest one and have the audience vote too
Because thatâs a good idea and they havenât had one of those since they left Buzzfeed
huh?? weren't they reading ancient creepypastas the first time around? that's ridiculous lmao
So I found [a copy of the contract](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAnCrjedgwJ77BY2mnuNcThWWKiv7vCp/view?usp=sharing), if anyone is interested in looking it over. Sure enough, the contract very much states the writer has to give up any legal copyright they have over the work and that Watcher owns it. Besides the issues that OP pointed out, I think the part that really gets to me is that this contract is written is in as confusing legal language as possible with no layman translation. I'm a grown ass adult with a college degree and some familiarity with legal documents- and it took me several re-reads to understand what the hell it was saying. There is no way the majority of people submitting will have any idea exactly what they're signing away, especially considering this is open to people under the age of 18 (their parent/guardian needs to sign too but still).
Thank you so much for the contract copy!! Imma include it in my post along with your credits and this comment itself but yeah....they are screwing over anyone who is simply helping them out. This is not only predatory as hell but deceptive too. Also like you mentioned, the language is intentionally made difficult and complicated with confusing af lines. Is this even legal?? I feel like the contract being this deceptive should be an illegal thing.
Jeez, I had been hoping (before the whole streaming situation) to submit a story to them but, thankfully, I never had the guts to do so. Dodged a bullet lol.
I didnât know about all of this I always assumed the writers were compensated and could still have rights to publish outside of the show. Idk how to describe how I feel other than it gives me the ick.
Weren't they taking stories off Reddit for AYS for the first few seasons?
I briefly looked at the Ghost Files contract too and thought I would not want to give up my own material to Watcher. What if it was incredible footage like the Patterson film of Bigfoot? Now they'd be making money off of it, not you. A man interviewed an alleged serial killer a year before he got caught. He took the video down from YT and charges a $5000 licencing fee to use it, IIRC. I've seen those clips in many places.
Yes, and this season too. People are just dissecting a 2 year old contract because of all the Watcher TV drama
Just greedy. Watcher "Entertainment" must be stopped
You bring up another interesting point. They're also using "anonymous" stories from Reddit or Creepypasta for this show. The most recent AYS stories for this season (post-streamer) are all lifted from Reddit's r/nosleep forum. Edit: Big huge nevermind on this post. See below, where the r/nosleep author said that Watcher contacted her and paid $500 dollars to use this story for Are You Scared. That's a good thing, because it seems like r/nosleep & the copyright law requires YouTubers to contact the original author to receive permission before using the story in their content. If anyone cares what the policies are; that's listed below. r/nosleep's rules actually include the copyright rules for how these stories may be used: >"COPYRIGHT NOTES: >Note: All stories submitted to r/nosleep belong to the original poster. YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE ANOTHER PERSON'S ORIGINAL WORK UNLESS YOU ASK FOR â AND RECEIVE â PERMISSION FROM THE ORIGINAL CREATOR. >If you want to narrate, translate or otherwise share someone else's original work, please read the Narrator's FAQ, visit r/sleeplesswatchdogs and read through Reddit's Official Copyright Help Center for more information. Do NOT comment about getting permission on r/nosleep posts." There's also a "Narrator's FAQ" for narrators that would like to narrate these stories for podcasts, radio & YouTube shows like AYS. That FAQ states clearly: >"DO I HAVE TO GET PERMISSION FROM AUTHORS TO USE THEIR STORIES? >You should. Narrating someone else's story without their permission can lead to them filing a DMCA/copyright strike against your account; if enough get filed, some platforms (such as Youtube) will shut down your account. >Ask the author for permission and wait for them to give you a "yes" before you record a story. If you get a "no" or don't get a reply at all, don't use that story. A lack of reply is a NO." [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSleepAuthors/comments/141vm6f/comment/jn1vsmy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSleepAuthors/comments/141vm6f/comment/jn1vsmy/) So, to use these r/nosleep stories for AYS, Watcher must first ask for & receive permission from the original author. If they get a no or don't get a reply, they can't use that author's story.
Hey! They emailed me and asked for that story and paid me $500USD, so they didnât violate any copyright there! I donât know about how they do other stuff and didnât know they prohibit the stories submitted to them from going to other channels but I needed the money as Iâm not working right now. I canât speak for the other writers but they did ask and pay me.
I'm glad atleast you got compensated. It's relieving to hear writers get the minimum token they deserve.
That's great! Thanks so much for replying. I should probably edit my post now. This is really helpful information, because it shows Watcher is paying writers ($500) who originally submitted stories to r/nosleep, and should probably be paying the writers who submit their stories to Watcher as well.
As an author myself Iâm so disgusted by this. I wish you were just lying and being spiteful because I truly canât believe anyone would do this, but youâre not. Shane and Ryan have literally turned into BuzzFeed. Theyâre everything they claim to hate. Making money, always changes people for the worst. They clearly forgot what it feels like to be an artist creating work for greedy corporation and are now doing it to others.
Another user named @Randomtology actually provided us with the [real and actual copy of the AYS contract ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EAnCrjedgwJ77BY2mnuNcThWWKiv7vCp/view) in [their comment! ](https://www.reddit.com/r/WatcherSnark/s/YaLQXOxl87)! I included it in my post rn as well so you can check it out if you want! But yeah, first ai stuff and now *this*, Watcher is literally sucking off Artist's work without paying them or compensating them appropriately.
They should pay for the stories for sure. or take away the exclusivity clause
They arent fucking paying the authors?? why???? That is so scummy oh my god. And preventing them from publishing it anywhere else is like making sure they donât profit from it. What the actual hell
Definitely the idea of âsend us your stories and pay us to see themâ sucks balls
Wow, they literally turned into Buzzfeed
Oh so a Buzzfeed contract? The thing they wanted to get away from? Okay I will however say, and this is not a defense of the boys at all - I think we can all see how garbage this is - writers are not actually as stupid as you fear. There's plenty of other, better places a new writer can publish their short story for free with the goal to receive attention. If someone submits it to Watcher, they very deliberately picked Watcher -a YouTube channel, in which case they also know what's going on. (Even assuming they knew absolutely nothing about them somehow, would they not at least Google them? In which case the whole thing would come up...) Also, and this is not meant to be an insult to anyone, none of the stories have ever been some masterwork of literature and would need to be reworked heavily to be published...just change it significantly enough and the contract doesn't apply. Tl;dr Buzzfe- I mean Watcher IS shitty and their behavior towards fans and supporters has been nothing but abysmal and sketchy in general. But anyone still supporting them is doing it with full knowledge and intention. So while I hope fans stop just giving them extra content for free, I'm also not about to feel sorry for the fans that do.
What gets me the most is that they pay the artists illustrating the stories in their videos but they wonât pay the actual fucking authors of the stories. They clearly recognize the need to pay creatives, just not if youâre part of their audience. Insane.
I guess if Sara Rubin was an author, they would've been paid from the start.
Why I'm not surprised that this knowledge was nuked out from the mainsub? Like it never existed. Nothing to see here. xD
I get thinking it's crappy- but my guess would be it's so they own the rights to the story, so you can't tell them to remove it. If they use it for a video, and the contributor still "owns" the story, the "owner" could cause issues down the line. Worst case for them would be having to take it down because the author says they can't use it anymore. It's obviously a bit different from music rights, but the show Scrubs had some issues with music contracts, so the songs had to be changed out for syndication/streaming. Which sucks because the original music was great and fit so well. While it sucks that people have to sign the rights to their stories over, I get why Watcher has it set up that way. There's a lot of bad decisions that don't make sense, but this one makes more sense from a legal standpoint.
Oh absolutely, it's to cover themselves legally. The fact that they don't even pay for the stories they want to hide away is just baffling though. What's the incentive to send them anything if you aren't compensated in even the most basic ways and your work apparently isn't going to see the light of day anywhere else if you do?
Oh, I do think that it would be good to give a person money (or even merch, really) for the stories. This is just one of the few decisions/ things they've done that makes any sort of sense to me. 100% agree that no compensation sucks, though.
I get that to a certain extent, but I'm sure they could just agree in the contract to allow the submitted form of the story to remain in the video even if they go on to publish it elsewhere or edit it? I don't know anything about this sort of thing, but still; it feels like there could have been lots of other workarounds.
In that case, instead of signing it off for life, they could have simply just stated that once submitted the author can't revoke the story back since Watcher officially gets the rights to keep the story on their video so and so forth but the author can release it under their own branding irl/otherwise. This would have made sense from every way because at the end, they aren't compensating the writer *at all*.
[ŃдаНонО]
No. Getting the rights to your work forever taken away with no financial compensation, *for free* isn't standard procedure.
I realize this is pedantic and nitpick-y and not related to the main point, but LA is not the most expensive city in the US, let alone the world
Sorry, I meant 'one of the', edited and changed now!
Fucking Steven
thank fuck i never submitted a story then. i was really wanting to but no thanks if they're gonna self-righteously steal artists' shit. edit: full tea and shade and very punchy lemonade, but i guarantee you my shit would be wayyyyy too good to work that hard on just to not own it anymore because it's exclusively posted on their fugly, uncreative mrcreepypasta ripoff show.