Gourmet: Going, going….Gone:-(
November will be the last issue of this grand old foodie mag published by the good folks at Conde Nasty. In the 90’s (that is, last century), Gourmet was one of my best clients. Their jobs were like a rich dessert: you stayed at the best hotels, ate at the best restaurants, and were treated like a king by everyone from chefs to PR folks.
Irwin Glusker was the AD and he always made you look good in the spreads with big pictures and pages and pages per story. Ah the good old days.
Then came the internet, and with it, the corporate lawyers who decided that locking up “content” was the way to go to preserve Gourmet and Conde Nasty. So, overnight, the contract went from what was then the normal “one time use” to the following, now famous, bit of legalese:
“For these considerations, you hereby grant Conde Nast the copyright to these photographs in this or any other medium, now in existence, or hereinafter developed, throughout the universe…..”
The galaxy wasn’t enough for these guys, noooooo, they had to lock up your work throughout the universe. So just in case Gourmet launched an edition on say, the planet Rigel VII, they still wouldn’t have to pay you, the “content provider,” another nickel over the old “one-time use” Earth dayrate.
Set your phasers on stun, and hit the jump to find out how we handled those odious snippets of legalese. (more…)