Contributors Rules
Contributors
If you are interested in being a contributor to the site, please take a moment to read carefully and understand our terms. This site is a for-profit site; we're hopeful that we can help you earn rewards for your creative material here. Be sure that you correctly understand all of the requirements for using Torn World content as the background for your work. You must agree to these terms and join the site as a contributor for any use of this shared world, otherwise all rights are reserved.
You must be 18 years or older to get Contributor access. This agreement serves as a legal contract.
Definitions
Ellen Million Graphics: Ellen Million Graphics is the sole proprietorship of Ellen Million. Torn World is a project developed and owned in full by the business. Rights to the content of the site are defined below.
Torn World content: Torn World has many distinctive and unique characteristics. These combinations of characteristics, the storylines established by multiple writers, and the artwork used to depict it establishes a setting. This setting and the work which establishes it is referred to collectively as Torn World content.
Creative Material: Writing, artwork, music or other creative content created for and set in Torn World.
Canon/Non-Canon Material: Canon Material is that which has been accepted into the shared continuity, and is screened for quality as well as accuracy. Non-Canon Material does not need to meet the same quality requirements, and may not be accurate to the shared Torn World setting. For more information on this distinction, please see the Canon page.
Contributor: The writer, artist or otherwise creator of the material in question.
Torn World site: The webpage, including subdomains, located at http://tornworld.net, as maintained by Ellen Million Graphics.
Supporter: A user of the Torn World site who makes a monetary payment in exchange for extra privileges and access.
Karma: A non-monetary unit of payment used at the Torn World site.
Credits: A monetary form of payment used at the Torn World site, generated by supporter fees and paid to Contributors of their choice.
Member account: A basic (free) registration at the Torn World site.
Rights
As the creator of original material based on Torn World content, you retain partial rights.
Rights that Ellen Million Graphics retains: Archive and non-exclusive, web-only publishing rights. We want to be able to include your work in the continuity of Torn World and build off of it. These rights are non-transferable.
Ellen Million Graphics has the right to collect advertising and supporter fees, but will not otherwise re-sell or profit off of the Contributor's Creative Material in any way. All printed material and merchandise will be separately negotiated.
Rights that the Contributor retains: First worldwide print rights. Non-exclusive publishing rights. Contributors may additionally choose whether their work is available publicly, or to paid supporters only. They may delay the publication of the work at the Torn World site up to two years in order to market the work elsewhere.
Special cases regarding specific rights may be decided on an individual basis.
Attribution
The Contributor shall receive attribution for all Creative Material that they contribute to the project. The Torn World site will list them as the creator or co-creator of the material by the name they register with.
If Contributors post their Creative Material at other sites (personal sites and collective galleries, for example, or published in an outside anthology), they must provide a link back to the Torn World site, and/or refer to the Torn World project in the description, wherever possible.
The Contributor receives a page at the site, which lists all of their contributions to the project for as long as their account is active. They are allowed a link to any personal outside site they like, provided the site does not contain deliberately offensive or illegal material. Artistic nudity is fine, though it may be flagged as an adult site. Hate sites, child pornography, affiliate links and spam-generation/link-bot sites are not allowed. Contributors do not get a page at the site until they have actually contributed content.
Should the Contributor choose to leave the site, they may request that their work be archived anonymously. Non-Canon material may be removed on request.
Should the contributor leave the site for any reason, including inactivity, Torn World reserves the right to optionally remove all of their content from the site.
Activity
To receive Credits through the site, the Contributor must have an active Member account. To keep a Member account active, they must have logged into the site at least once in the past year. In the case of inactivity, contact with the Contributor will be attempted via the listed email only; keeping contact information current is the responsibility of the Contributor. If contact cannot be established and the Contributor does not log into the site for twelve months, they will become inactive. Their Creative Material continues to be credited to them, and their information is listed in a special non-active Contributor category.
To gain a Contributor page at the Torn World site, a single accepted submission of any kind is required. We don't want any empty Contributor pages!
Offensive and disruptive interaction with other members may be grounds for membership suspension, though we will attempt other methods of resolution first.
Contributors who leave the site in good standing may return at any time, even if their account was deactivated due to inactivity or lack of contact. Contributors who are suspended but return contritely will be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Payments
No Credits will be collected for non-active Contributors. In the case of a Contributor choosing to leave the site, or being suspended, their outstanding Credits shall be paid to them when their account is deactivated. Credits that cannot be paid to the Contributor because their contact and payment information is inaccurate and contact cannot be made are forfeit after one year of lost contact.
For all active Contributors, Credits can be redeemed for payment once their balance is $10 or more, at any time. Payment is standardly sent via paypal, however a personal check can be written and sent anywhere in the world for a fee of $1.00. All currency conversions, money transfer fees and other fees the Contributor may have to pay to receive the payment are the Contributor's responsibility.
The Contributor is not an employee of Ellen Million Graphics. All appropriate taxes are the responsibility of the Contributor.
Credits may also be redeemed at face value as spending credit anywhere at Ellen Million Graphics. These credits may be redeemed at any value.
In the case of collaborative work, there is the distinct possibility that one Contributor make make more than another on a piece that they shared equally in effort. Ellen Million Graphics has no obligation to balance payments for collaborative work.
All payments and credits totals collected are subject to privacy restrictions. Ellen Million Graphics will not share individual credits totals with any party unless required by law.
Characters
For more information about character creation and ownership, see the Character Creation page.
Collaborations
Collaborative pieces are not only allowed, they are encouraged! Contributors may coordinate Creative Material with other Contributors at any time. When the work is complete, the collaborative team chooses a member to submit it. When submitted, authors and editors will be listed alphabetically. All collaborators will be eligible to receive Credits for that piece (if it is accepted as a Canon piece), regardless of their share of the work.
Plagiarism
'Sharing a world' is not in any way related to 'copying a work'. Torn World will not accept plagiarism in any form. Any work found to be plagiarized will be removed from the site immediately and the Contributor may be deactivated as a member. As a Contributor, you may use the ideas and stories published at the Torn World site as background and setting for your story, and you may draw the creatures that are unique to Torn World, but you may not copy existing artwork of these creatures, or repeat any of the existing content, including from the resources database. Your work must be original.
Torn World and Ellen Million Graphics are not responsible for any plagiarism by its members, and will take all necessary steps to remove work that is found to be unlawfully used.
Changes
It is impossible to foresee every circumstance, and situations may require these terms to change. At that point, you would receive notification and have the option to refuse the new terms and set your account to inactive, rather than be bound by the new terms.
Disclaimers
This service is provided as-is. Though we will of course do our best to minimize errors and glitches, Torn World and Ellen Million Graphics are not responsible for losses of data that may occur. Please retain copies of all of your Creative Material and correspondence independently of the site.
If any part of this contract is found to be unlawful in any manner, that part is to be disregarded, and the integrity of the remaining portion of the contract remains intact.
For more information about getting involved once you've decided to become a contributor, Start Here!
Last revised March 24, 2009
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