Clause 61

The terms of this clause aren’t the best we’ve seen, but they're not the worst either.

CLAUSE TEXT:

(3) Content Ownership

• You retain the copyright to the content you submit to [Publisher].
• You agree to grant to [Publisher] the following perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid-up rights for all of your articles written for [Publisher]:
• Exclusive worldwide rights to (1) publish, distribute and publicly display your articles online, at [site] or other third-party websites and publications with whom [Publisher] enters into a content distribution arrangement; (2) excerpt your articles online at [site] or in our newsletter, for any purpose; (3) include your articles in our online archive or database for the period of 6 months from the original publication date of your article.
• After the exclusive period, non-exclusive fully paid-up worldwide rights to (1) publish, distribute and publicly display your articles online, at [site] or other third-party websites and publications with [Publisher] enters into a content distribution arrangement; (2) excerpt your articles online at [site] or in our newsletter, for any purpose; (3) include your articles in our online archive or database.

EXPLANATION:

This is a contract for the publication of an article on a website. It grants the publisher the exclusive right to publish, distribute, publicly display, excerpt, and archive the article. Clause 3 specifies an exclusive period of six months following first publication in regard to archiving the article. One can assume that the publication intended the 6 month exclusive period to apply to clauses 1 and 2, but the phrasing is poorly worded and unclear. After the exclusive period is over, the publisher retains non-exclusive rights, meaning that the author can exercise those rights as well.