By Abby Glassenberg
“As publishers we have seen the importance of translating magazine brands into digital products and felt the best way for the Homespun and Quilters Companion content and mastheads to go online was in this way rather than create a blog or website and post it freely…we felt this would devalue the content as well as the mastheads,” an email to designers from editor Emma Perera read. We reached out to Universal Magazines for comment for this story but after more than a week they haven’t gotten back to us.
The email went on to say that Cosy Project would serve as a new way for Australian designers to be discovered. “In fact, all designers on the site are invited to create profile pages and promote their own e-commerce shops, blogs, social accounts, Etsy stores, etc. to help our users connect directly with you.” Designers receive 10 percent of the sales price of each pattern.
Universal Magazines is, as far as we can tell, within their rights to digitally republish and sell the patterns from the magazines. Designers signed contracts that included the a clause granting these right. It reads, “It is agreed that copyright in THE WORK will vest with Universal Magazines including electronic publication rights.”
Patterns on Cosy Project are priced between $10–15. Perera explained the revenue share in an email to a designer: “There has been a considerable investment made into building and resourcing Cosy Project as well as a high cost associated with repurposing all the patterns from the magazine. For that reason, 10 percent was the highest viable amount we could share with designers until further notice. And we will revisit and look at this periodically and change the revenue share if and when possible.” Some designers have asked Perera to raise the prices on their patterns and those requests have been honored.
Designers were asked to provide their bank account details for direct deposit and to fill out their Cosy Project online profiles, but were not given the ability to opt out from inclusion in the site.
Despite having signed a contract granting the publisher digital rights, many designers were taken by aback by the announcement, and some were angered and dismayed.
Pattern listings on The Cosy Project website include the designer’s name in a small font size and don’t link up to the designer’s profile page where contact information is listed.
Designer profile pages list the contact information at the bottom of questions the designer answers. Often the contact information is below the fold and not immediately visible.
Another said, “Perhaps naively I have just signed in the past and probably skimmed over the bit about digital rights as there was no place they would use them…. It is a good lesson to me to check things properly; I have been someone that just has floated along in the past assuming no one was trying to be underhanded.”
For some designers being part of Cosy Project is a welcome addition to their online presence. One designer who contributes to magazines but doesn’t sell digital patterns herself said, “I am coming around to this. I am not sure they actually have to pay us anything and it is not costing me anything to host the site, promote it, or maintain it.” Another said, “While there are definitely some things I’m still a little unsure about, I’m going to go with it. I don’t believe they are trying to do us any harm, which for me is the most important thing. Hopefully that continues to be the case.”
Others have expressed frustration at not receiving any financial statements in the months since launch. “Cosy Project can send out all the bells-and-whistles emails to subscribers saying that they’ve added 100+ new designs to the site, but they can’t communicate once with the designers in over three months?” one asked.
“Have I sold a pattern? Or 10? Or none at all?” one designer asked. “How do I know? I have to trust them when all trust has been broken. I feel pretty disposable, but not my intellectual property. That’s worth something to them.”
Some designers simply feel resigned about the situation. “I know there’s nothing I can do to stop them,” one said. “I know nothing I can do will change the course this thing is on. I’ve read what other designers have said along the lines of they won’t ever submit to them again, but other new designers will step in and take the place of the old and see the publication as their big break,” she said, “They can chew designers up, get their work, and discard them because there will never be a void. It makes me feel a bit ill, actually.”
Universal Magazines isn’t the only craft media company to sell PDFs of previously published magazine projects. For F+W Media this is standard practice.
This is a non issue as far as selling the digital patterns is concerned. It was in the contract! If you don’t agree with that then don’t sign it. Any upset about the selling of patterns just shows the ignorance of the designer and laziness in not reading the small print or apparently not caring about it enough at the time of signing. At least one of the designers in the above article is annoyed about the principle of Universal magazines selling the patterns online at the same time as they are themselves wanting to sell them. I get that it is unwanted competition, but well, those are the terms you signed buttercup.
Magazine contracts that might seem more acceptable, are those where the designer gives over the rights of the pattern for a fixed term – say 6 months or a year and then all rights come back to them. I know pattern designers who then sell the pattern online once it has reverted back to them. It can also work out best for buyers that way – say if the pattern is released over multiple issues. I don’t want to be forced to buy a magazine for a year in order to get a CAL pattern released slowly over 13 issues (trying to manipulate me into buying a subscription) which I know will be re-released in a year or so. I am happy to wait and pay just for the pattern I want and not the magazine which I don’t. I also prefer to support designers directly who then receive all the money for the pattern sold.
What is less acceptable behaviour is that the terms of patterns being sold online seem very vague. The designers are left hanging about monies owed to them and so on, and information on how many copies have been sold and when or how they are to receive payment seems to be lacking. In part again this is designer error. Read the contract before you sign and get it clarified if you don’t understand any part of it. I don’t suppose the magazine had the terms and conditions ready if they were not selling patterns online at the point where the designers gave them up but a contract could have stated that full clarification and transparency would be given at the point when this changed. The onus is still on you to sort out basics like this. However it does not seem very professional or ethical of the magazines to treat the contributors in this way and improvements in communications should be made.
Designers need to generally be more savvy and then they would not be in this position. You do have a choice. You own the commodity that magazines want. Toughen up. You have seemingly allowed yourselves to be ‘exploited’. Magazines get away with what they do (like free articles written by bloggers) because they are enabled to do so.
Totally agree Mary.
I feel like this relates generally to other designer issues – fabric design, pattern testing, etc. Of course it is flattering to be published. Of course you want your work exposed to a broader audience. But if you do not treat your work like a business, then as Mary said above, you run the risk of being exploited. Until designers begin advocating for themselves (and, darn it, people stop doing free pattern testing!!!) publishers, fabric companies, etc. will exploit them to the degree that they can. They are in the business to make as much money for their investors as possible. That is their fiduciary responsibility.
Having worked for a hobby industry magazine, I totally agree with Mary. It is incumbent upon any author or designer creating content for a publication to do their due diligence. Consult a lawyer about the contract terms if you don’t understand them (yes it’s an expense, but are you running a business or enjoying a hobby?), or negotiate with the publisher on the terms. You can sometimes modify the terms in a mutually acceptable way.
That said, the publisher in this case should be communicating better with designers and providing more information on sales. They must be collecting that info themselves. Spoonflower has an excellent platform that can serve as an example. The publisher is making a good effort and has been more than fair in its promises regarding cutting designers in on a percentage of sales, which they didn’t have to do; but they need to go further. Once you’ve promised something publicly it becomes an obligation and you raise expectations. If they’re not fulfilled you’re going to get complaints that can tarnish your company’s reputation, and that still matters.
I concur with reading the fine print. Sadly, I believe that most of the people who enter into magazine contracts are somewhat new to the business aspect of contracts, and thus don’t realize they can push back on things they don’t like, or even say NO. It’s SO FLATTERING when someone wants what you make, and as quilting is built on the shoulders of mostly kind and fair women, we assume that all our dealings will be kind and fair, and we jump in, not imagining anything will go wrong, or that companies won’t be upfront about the money aspects of things. Personally, I find 10% royalty to be an insult for a digital product – a digital product literally sits there making money while you sleep… you don’t have to handle it or stock it or run to the post office with it. Craftsy passes through the entire amount on digital patterns, less Paypal fees. I realize that they need to reformat the work and host the content, but that’s *their* business decision to do that, and the cost of that decision is now shunted to the lowest fish in the food chain, the designer. Seriously, when you screw over a designer, they have no dog below them to kick (not that any of us would dream of passing on a screwing or kicking a dog). If we all stop writing for magazines under these circumstances, then their game will HAVE to change. I think it’s now more important than ever to read the fine print!
It’s an especially interesting case to me because this is a company that didn’t have an ecommerce site for patterns at the time that these designers signed their contracts, but the language around digital rights was spelled out. For me, as a designer, it underlines the need to consider all possible future scenarios when I’m looking at contract language.
Yes, exactly. When I began to design for publications in 2002, magazines were only available on newsstands and pdfs weren’t around. Most magazines purchased all rights, so they were covered by the time they decided to sell digital content.
I wish that enough designers would join an association such as this one so that it could become something like actor’s equity. Their members are protected from abuse because employers can only hire a certain percentage of performers outside the association. As such, if they need any association members, they need to follow the rules in order to hire any of them.
When I first heard of it last year from some of my designer friends effected by this, it certainly made me a lot more hesitant to submit to this magazine, being an Australian designer myself, or at the very least, I know I won’t be submitting my “best” designs to this magazine. It is somewhat reassuring that designers were able to ask for the price to be increased (presumably to match the price they currently sell it for themselves), but 10% on a digital product is not very much at all.
This is in comparison to a magazine like Love Patchwork & Quilting where not only are they fantastic to work with, but they create a beautiful magazine with gorgeously styled photos of your projects, that you then get to reuse yourself for whatever purpose. Including on your own pattern cover for that pattern later down the line if you like! A stark, stark contrast.
The problem is that getting a magazine commission is a good way to make money for many quilt designers, compared to just launching it as a stand-alone pattern for your own business. In Australia, for a full-sized quilt, you’re looking at around $250 straight up. Which isn’t much compared to what overseas magazines are paying, but that’s enough to pay for your expenses in making it and possibly even your first print run if you later want to offer it as a printed pattern too. And it’s also a way to get your name out there in the small quilting world of Australia should you also want to teach classes, sell patterns to stores, etc. It’s a really tricky situation!
As an end user, it concerns me that content which was already in CP/UM’s hands was automatically offered without giving designers the option to opt out of the process. When designers signed the original magazine content contracts, the CP platform didn’t exist, they did so in good faith that there was a finite period (print run) of exposure. It seems that CP/UM have therefore changed the terms of the contract and the assumption that designers would automatically participate, is unethical.
I recently purchased a pattern from this platform as the original magazine was OOP and the designer didn’t have it listed in their shop. I did check first. In future I will go one step further and email the designer first.
I am surprised at the tone of the comments towards designers. Yes, I would be frustrated if I was in this situation. But, I think it’s more alarming that there has been no payment, no communication, nothing since the launch months ago. It feels sneaky. Having been on the receiving end as an author and designer of some pretty disheartening circumstances from a publisher, some within the rights of the contract, frustrating as they are, and some outside those rights, there is literally no recourse, without involving lawyers. And honestly, no one makes enough in craft publishing to afford that.
As an Australian Designer effected I also feel that there is a need for us to check our contracts carefully and I daresay a lot of us will from now on be a lot more vigilant. I know I have been since a similar incident occurred some years ago.
That said I still believe that what has happened is sneaky and outside of the scope (maybe not technically but definitely perceptually) of the contract. We signed a contract and gave rights for a “magazine” to include our content and therefore one would assumed that any digital sales/rights would be on the “magazine” or publication. I believe that this selling of individual patterns as a seperate pattern entity is a blindside to all designers in this case and in the case of similar moves by book publishers etc.
In adding to other people’s comments, I also have had no contact regarding payments or sales.
I find this all very sad 🙁 I had the opportunity to have a book published a long time ago. “I read the small print”…. didn’t understand much of it & passed it to a lawyer/solicitor who assured me it was a ‘standard contract’….all legal & above board. No problem there. Like Abby said the problem is with the unexpected “the need to consider all possible future scenarios when I’m looking at contract language.” This is almost impossible to do. Did I really expect that such a huge percentage of the books would be sold at a highly discounted rate to Book clubs (thus reducing the royalties to almost nothing)? The answer was “no” but that was what happened. There were digital clauses…also at the time irrelevant (no such thing as PDFs those days). But I could also have suffered the same fate as the magazine contributors mentioned in the article. No one has a crystal ball, we are not contract lawyers and the home town lawyer/solicitor can only tell you it is a legal contract & not whether it is fair or to be careful as you may be taken advantage of that is not their job. Publishers whether they be magazine or book publishers are simply looking after themselves they need to make money for themselves they are not doing the designer/contributor a ‘favour’ (though it is easy to be flattered by the possibility of having your work in print and feel excited because of the potential future income) a publishers job is to find content and make money. The part about lack of communication is also too familiar! As is delays in payment and hopefully not the sort of ‘creative accounting’ I experienced. Like I said this makes me sad. 🙁
The company didn’t take advantage of the designers. The designers chose to sell those electronic rights when they signed the contract. It didn’t matter that the platform didn’t exist at the time, and the designers assumed it wasn’t an issue; they still sold their digital rights. The designers choosing to work with that company could’ve requested that clause be removed from the contract; if the company refused to do so, they could’ve chose to not work with the company.
From the wording shown, it appears that the company wouldn’t need to compensate the designers for PDF sales at all.
Although this blog series is written for fiction writers, I believe the advice applies to us as designers as well: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/tag/magic-bakery/
Things to consider when signing contracts: fees for exclusivity, period of exclusivity, print rights vs digital, reprinting / inclusion in other collections, whether the pattern can be offered for free, rights to derivative works, rights based on geography (for example US publication vs other), etc. I’m sure there are many other things I’m not thinking of off the top of my head.
As a Publisher, I advise my authors and artists when I intend to use their work again in a different project and whether it will be the same terms as before or better so they can refuse. I don’t want the people I’m working with to feel they’ve been used. That said, I find there’s always room for improvement in every aspect of the business. Moving online is never as simple as it seems it should be, contracts are hard pressed to keep up with technology, and the reality of tracking and reporting royalties while maintaining confidentiality is much more cumbersome than I could have imagined. Who wants their income or sales figures sent to everyone else who is entitled to royalties? If you have a dozen creators,sending individual reports is easy, hundred or more, different story. Just saying, If you’ve never done something, you don’t know what’s involved, so what you think will be simple often is not. True for all things. Three months in publishing is a blink of an eye. Been doing it years and still learning how to do it better. Three months waiting on your money or news of it is an eternity. Been on both sides. We can all improve how we conduct our business. Sharing ideas and information is a great step forward to that end. And does anyone know if any of the contributors to this project have requested their patterns not be included, and any response to that?
From talking with designers it doesn’t seem like requests to opt out have been granted.
I have replied to this so many times in my head, but I will save you all and give the abbreviated version. For full disclosure, I also have been caught up in this. I know my rights, I understand the contract very well AND their digital publishing rights (and have had legal advice before and after). I am all for companies diversifying their income streams. Kudos to them for thinking outside the square.
Sure, they have offered us 10% of sales, which is more than they need to, BUT, the fact that they STILL don’t have a plan for how this will work logistically – 6 MONTHS LATER – concerns me. So far, non of the designers I know have received any payment or further communication about how we can expect this to work. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
My issue lies with the treatment of the designers. There is a real lack of consultation, engagement, transparency and communication around this. We are the talent that fill the pages that sells their magazine and without us, there is nothing for readers to buy. But, now I feel like they don’t respect any of us. At the end of the day, it boils down to the ethics of the company. Their profits at our expense.
I will not be submitting work to them again and would not recommend anyone else to if they asked my opinion.
I have one pattern included in Cosy, having had three published in Homespun. I was fully aware that my contract included future use by the publishers so when they contacted me, I wasn’t surprised. I did not ever really check out the site, though, and was not aware of the designer profile pages (as pictured above) so that was a surprise to see myself in this post. What I have wondered, as others have said, is whether or not any of my pattern have been sold as I have never received any payment from Homespun. I will be contacting the editor to ask about this. This post brings up a lot of good points. I’m among those who are grateful for the exposure.
As an update to my comments. I have come to the end of my rope with Cosy. They neglected to pay me in the first cycle, claiming I had not submitted my banking information in time and that they would not go back and pay me for those sales. I was able to refute this with the emails they sent me thanking me for my banking information long before the deadline for submission so they apologized and said they would pay me. They never did. I have not received any actual statements disclosing sales and dates of sales. I have received one payment of about $24AU which was deposited last March 2018. I have now given them 7 more days to respond or I will have my lawyer contact them. It’s not the money which will amount to next to nothing. (Although according to their site, one of my patterns is a “best seller”.) it’s the principle of the thing.
I too am a designer affected by this and have not received any payment since March 2018 (and I had to hound them for that payment). I’ve sent numerous emails to Cosy, most of which were ignored, but the times I did receive a reply it was to say that payment would be made ‘soon’. I have also spoken to them on the phone – they acknowledged they are running behind on payments and will be making them soon. I’m fed up with the false promises.
I’m extremely disappointed in how they’re treating their designers and their lack of communication is very frustrating.
I too will not be submitting any more designs to them.
I had a few quilt patterns in Cosy Projects. So far I’ve only received $10.95 since they started which means that I perhaps sold 10 patterns. I had heard nothing from them since then so recently wrote to them asking for some more information, particularly if I could see statements showing payments etc. The response I got was very frustrating.
I was told that yes, the site is still operating but they are not actively marketing or running it at the moment and haven’t done so for a few years mainly because they want to focus on growing and developing the magazine products. Apparently they don’t have staff on Cosy Projects at the moment. The last payment was made up until the end of December 2017 (!!!) and they haven’t been making payments since then, the reason being that they haven’t been marketing Cosy so the revenue has been minimal. Most designers, i was told, don’t have any payments owed to them and for the rest the amounts have been small. They assure me that they will do a payment to all designers by the end of this week. Why? Because I wrote to them reminding them?
I was so upset that they did this to us designers – and I know we’ve been berated here because we didn’t read the contract – that I now refuse to do anything for them.
The other upsetting thing is that we found – just by chance – that they sold our patterns to magazines in Europe without us receiving any benefit from that.