Anyways, good afternoon one and all, on this gorgeous summer day! I hope your summers are all going well so far. Seeing as it's summer, a time for merriment and revelry galore, Poniverse itself has a rather exciting event for you all. It's... another fanfiction contest hosted by the Poniverse Fimfiction group!!!

OK, I know, I know, "Batbrony, we always have fanfiction contests around here!" Well I'm happy to announce that this is not just any ordinary fanfiction contest. Nope, no sir, this contest is actually going to leave an impression on all of Poniverse as we know it. How, you may ask? Well it's quite simple really. For this contest, we would like you, any and all of our lovely members of Poniverse, to write stories about mascots!

No, not those mascots! I'm talking about the Poniverse mascots of course! For those of you who don't know, Poniverse and each of its websites (MLP Forums, Pony.fm, Equestria.tv, PoniArcade, and Pony Roleplay) actually all have mascots of their own. The sad thing is, though, these mascots have no stories of their own. No backstory, nothing really fleshing them out as characters. So, rather than just come up with some stories for them ourselves, we'd like you, our beloved members, to make some stories of your own. Below you'll find all the rules you need to know:

(1) Entries submitted to this contest must feature one or more of the Poniverse Mascots (Pixel Wavelength, Buffy, Viola, Viridian Meadows, Nova Blast, and Wordplay) in a starring role. Stories may fall into any genre and cover any subject the author desires, but we'd especially love to see backgrounds for the mascots fleshed out. Maybe an author has a story about how the mascot got their cutie mark and came to love what they love, or even how somepony like Pixel Wavelength became an alicorn in the first place! Maybe someone has a story up their sleeve about all the mascots meeting each other and forming a band of thick-as-thieves friends. Maybe you just have a silly slice-of-life story to tell about one or more of them, or a rollicking adventure, or a romance. Whatever the fic, we will accept and judge it, so long as it features these characters. Now, the characters aren't going to be total blank slates; that'd be kind of unfair asking you to work with characters with nothing to go off of but a few pics of them and nothing else. Thankfully, our staff has put together personality profiles for each character, which you will find below. These profiles do not provide background information about specific events or anything in these mascots lives, just some information about their personality traits and characteristics. You don't even have to follow them if you don't want to, though preference will be given in judging to fics that more closely follow these profiles. If you have any questions about something you'd like to do with a character, feel free to PM me about it.

Disclaimer: As these mascots are intellectual property of Poniverse.net, judges reserve the right to ask for minor content changes from submissions from finalists.

Pixel Wavelength: Pixel Wavelength, Poniverse's overall, benevolent alicorn OC mascot, is a complete and total sweetheart: generous to the core, friendly as heck, super motherly as well. She's that friend you can call at 3am in the morning crying and she'll come to your house with food and a hug. She's pretty naive, though. She's also not very adventurous, preferring to stay home and work on creating better technology. She's a bit of a 'mad' scientist, you could say, in the same vein as Twilight. She's very scientific, certainly. She wants to make the Equestrian version of a computer that can work with all species of pony! In fact, within our own crazy Poniverse canon where computers apparently exist in Equestria, she also happens to be the Princess of the Internet, something I'm sure ya'll could do some very fun stuff with in your writing.

Buffy: MLP Forums' mascot, Buffy is an absolute bundle of fun. She was based off of Shift, who designed her. So she will sometimes speak in CAPS LIKE THIS. Kind, adoring, would do anything for a friend. She's not really a voice of wisdom by any means, but she still gives her opinion anyway. She's a blabbermouth, and loves to chat (since, you know, forums and all!). She's a huge fan of watching shows and getting into heavy (but friendly) debates about them with the ponies around town. On a sadder note, she tends to feel lonely quite often, which is a big reason why she makes her voice so loud. She wants to be heard, to feel important and noticed.

Viola: Pony.fm's mascot is an uptight musician, who specializes in violins. She is quite the social luminary, and comes from a family full of musically talented ponies. She has a personality and exhibits mannerisms in the same vein as Rarity, including the manner in which she speaks. She is a bit snobbish when it comes to ponies trying to befriend her, but outside of her tough (seemingly mean at times) exterior is quite the caring pony. She is loyal to her friends to the very core. She's definitely the straight man of the mascots - rolling her eyes at puns and boorish or uncouth behavior. Still, she's always willing to help out her friends and give them advice. She's quite good at it!

Viridian Meadows: Equestria.tv's mascot loves to gather her friends up for late night movies. She loves to crack puns and jokes (much to Viola's dismay at times), and is very much the jokester of the group. She can be quite the sassy pony too; quick with comebacks and always the one to break the silence. She's very confident and sure of herself. Sometimes, she run her mouth and fail to be careful in what she says, and that can be a bit of an issue. She's a budding filmmaker.

Nova Blast: PoniArcade's mascot, Nova Blast was named after his parent's favorite arcade machine. Nova Blast was raised by video games - he practically lives and breathes them. Especially as a video game creator. Despite this, he was never a 'nerd.' Like Viridian, he's cool and confident. Suave. The one who has a group of mares and stallions swooning over him. Nova tries to think of himself as this too cool to touch dude, but he's very much a dork at heart. He loves his friends to the core, even if he doesn't always show it. He's not one for hugs or 'I love yous,' but he does care a lot. He just has some trouble expressing himself.

MAJOR UPDATE #1: Any writers who were interested in Pony Roleplay's mascots, I have an update for you all. Pony Roleplay has some new information about their mascots, which you will find below the original profile which covered mostly just Wordplay. Art may be forthcoming in the future, but for now if you have any questions about their appearance or what pony species they are, or any other questions about them you think might be important, send a message to Fhaolan (who runs PRP) on MLP Forums and he should be able to help you out.

Wordplay: Leave it to the roleplayers/world-builders to have most a story for him. Pony Roleplay's mascot Wordplay is actually the only mascot with siblings, an older brother named Road Map and a younger sister named Fair Dice. Wordplay is a bit shy, but is a strong writer and D&D player. He is the quietest among his friends, but don't think lightly of him; he has a very sharp tongue, and can get irritated easily. He's a perfectionist, and has a bit of trouble when it comes to sharing. He also happens to be a colt-cuddler (for those of you not in the know, that means he prefers stallions over mares), and we do ask that this trait of his not be changed, though it is not, I repeat, NOT necessary to bring it up in any fic about him, and the same can be said as far as any of the mascots love-lives or sexual preferences are concerned.

Wordplay is the stallion depicted in the various artworks, and is the storyteller and RPer of the family. Fair Dice is his fractionally younger twin sister, and is far more interested in the mechanical aspects of RPs, with resolution systems, min/maxing, and so on. The little-seen Road Map is the much older brother who spends his time in the basement running massive, overenthusastic wargame scenarios such as the War of the Sun and Moon, or the Fall of the Crystal Empire. And painting all those miniatures. Can't use unpainted miniatures, you know! That would ruin the experience.

(2) Entries should be no longer than 25,000 words. We'd prefer that all entries be one-shot fics, but if the author requires multiple chapters for their fic, that's fine, so long as the fic does not exceed 25,000 words and is complete upon entry.

(3) Entries cannot exceed a Teen rating. We will not accept any Mature rated fics, whether they be Gore fics, Slash fics, Clop fics, etc. That's not to say that you can't enter scary or even sensual (to a certain extent) fics, but our group has a strict policy of not accepting Mature rated fics. If any Mature rated fics are entered, we will not read or review them.

(4) Fics can be submitted to the contest in the folder titled "Mascot Summerpalooza Contest Entries".

(5) Contestants can enter no more than 1 submission of their own work (and please, do not enter any other author's work into the contest, even if you're doing it for them; if they'd like to enter the contest, they can do so themselves).

(6) Entries will be accepted until Sunday, August 9, the last day of BronyCon 2015; after that date, we will accept no new submissions.

We hope to announce the contest winners in the middle or towards the end of August, although that time-slot may change depending on whatever real life demands may arise in the next month. Unlike our usual 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place format, winning entries will be selected based on the best fic for each of the respective mascots. Don't let that stop you from using multiple mascots in a fic, cause if a fic's well-written enough, there's certainly no reason it couldn't qualify as the best fic about 2 or more of the mascots. Just do whatever you feel is most manageable. Once the winning entries have been selected, special prizes will be awarded to those writers of the best entries for each respective character, which will be announced as the contest gets underway. In addition, as usual, all winning entries will be featured on MLP Forums, our Fimfiction group, and in the next Poniverse newsletter, along with reviews published for each one. Finally, and perhaps most exciting of all, the winning entries for each mascot will be accepted as official Poniverse canon for these characters.

We hope you all enjoy this contest as much as the last one, and hope to see some wonderful entries that help us to celebrate summer and continue to expand Poniverse! So get to it writers, and show us what you've got up your sleeves! I'm sure many of you have some very interesting stories in mind for each of these characters, and can't wait to see your ideas in action. If you have any questions about the contest, do not hesitate to post them here or to PM me, and feel free to share this contest prompt with any friends of yours here on MLP Forums, Fimfiction, or any other pony site you can think of! Have a pleasant day, everypony, and happy writing one and all!

MAJOR UPDATE #1: Any writers who were interested in Pony Roleplay's mascots, I have an update for you all. Pony Roleplay has some new information about their mascots, which you will find below (as well as above below Wordplay's original personality profile). Art may be forthcoming in the future, but for now if you have any questions about their appearance or what pony species they are, or any other questions about them you think might be important, send a message to Fhaolan (who runs PRP) on MLP Forums and he should be able to help you out.

Wordplay is the stallion depicted in the various artworks, and is the storyteller and RPer of the family. Fair Dice is his fractionally younger twin sister, and is far more interested in the mechanical aspects of RPs, with resolution systems, min/maxing, and so on. The little-seen Road Map is the much older brother who spends his time in the basement running massive, overenthusastic wargame scenarios such as the War of the Sun and Moon, or the Fall of the Crystal Empire. And painting all those miniatures. Can't use unpainted miniatures, you know! That would ruin the experience.

MAJOR UPDATE #2: Mascot Copyright Disclaimer, PLEASE READ!!!

Authors of winning entries will be required to sign a formal agreement that transfers intellectual property rights for the use and publicly available free publication of the fic in its entirety to Poniverse.net in order for their entries to be fully accepted as Poniverse canon and claim their prizes. Poniverse's intellectual property rights will not include the ability to publish the stories for sale or monetize the stories beyond publishing them in a publicly available format on any of Poniverse's websites.

MAJOR UPDATE #3: Mascot Contest Prizes!!!

As of today, Poniverse is officially offering a total of $300 USD cash prizes for this contest. $50 USD will be offered for the winning fic for each mascot character, coming out to a total of six $50 prizes altogether, and will be offered as cash or used at the winner's request to purchase non-cash prizes.

And to anyone reading this, yes, I approved this post. Batbrony asked beforehand, and since this is a contest group, I saw no issue with allowing an outside contest promotion.

Disclaimer: As these mascots are intellectual property of Poniverse.net, judges reserve the right to ask for minor content changes from submissions from finalists.

And I'm pretty sure authors reserve the right to totally ignore them if they so choose.

To any prospective entrants who've read this thread and are considering entering: be careful. I hope that my gut is wrong in telling me that this is basically trying to scam your stories out of you, but the way the contest is presented, especially those legal disclaimers about how the judges can change your story and will take full ownership of your story, rubs me the wrong way. Be careful. What this looks like is an attempt to get stories that should be commissioned for free. Not only are you being asked to write stories about specific OCs, things that should be commissioned, but you're also being told that your story can be altered however the judges see fit:

Disclaimer: As these mascots are intellectual property of Poniverse.net, judges reserve the right to ask for minor content changes from submissions from finalists.

Since this post fails to go into detail about the judges' interpretation of the word 'minor' is, these 'minor changes' could be anywhere from changing characters to changing entire plotlines. If someone wants you to change something about your story, chances are that the someone is commissioning you. These people are not.

Also worth mentioning is this:

By submitting an entry to this contest, the author grants Poniverse.net the unlimited right to reuse ideas, stories, details, etc., from them in whatever ways it sees fit, now or in the future. Authors of winning entries will be required to sign a formal agreement that transfers ownership of the fic in its entirety to Poniverse.net in order for their entries to be fully accepted as Poniverse canon and claim their prizes.

Remember all that stuff that you'll get if your fic wins? A spot in the official Poniverse canon about these characters (which is also something that these people should be commissioning if they're not willing to write it themselves)? You won't get any of that if you don't sign a form saying that you no longer own your work. If you're going to sign a form saying that something you made is no longer owned by you, you should at least be getting some monetary recompense, which this contest apparently doesn't have. Those 'special prizes' could be money, but they also couldn't be, and since they have not been revealed yet, don't count on that.

Everything about the conditions of this contest and how it is presented point to this being an attempt - maybe even a cover - to get stories that, under any other circumstances, would be commissioned without paying for them. I don't want to discourage anyone from entering if it's something they might be interested in, but I do want to make it clear that this doesn't look fair for any entrants. I hope I'm wrong, but there's no way of knowing until the future.

Man, I would love to see some guy try to defend his My Little Pony© character as his own intellectual property in court.

4540427
If they ignore that stipulation, that's fine, it's just they'll stand a risk of not winning if it's not something we feel would fit into the canon we're trying to carve out for these characters.

4540456
I understand your concerns, and trust me, this is not an easy process, I'm well aware of that. But I can assure you we're not trying to scam people. If we just wanted to get canon for these characters out of this, we'd just have taken the simpler route and had Poniverse staff come up with it ourselves. What we're really trying to do is get members of our community (or new members of Poniverse who stumble across and are interested in this contest) involved in a fun way in our community. Like I said, creatively this is going to be very hard to judge on, I'm aware of that, and I won't lie, many of the judges are going to be people who normally aren't involved in the fanfiction side of things. But know that we have nothing but the best of intentions here; if there's anything to be worried about, it's not that we're trying to scam people, it's that as far as figuring out this canon goes we risk getting in over our heads, but we're still gonna try our best to make this work. If you or anyone else interested in this contest have any questions about things that may or may not work for characters, feel free to PM me; we're trying to give writers as much creative liberty here as possible, but at the same time we can't let certain things be discounted about these characters in any fics written about them.

Oh, and as a quick clarification, any fics that don't win will still be placed in a Poniverse fanon folder in our group. They won't be canon for the characters, but we'll still certainly recognize the effort put into writing them in that regard.

4540653

If we just wanted to get canon for these characters out of this, we'd just have taken the simpler route and had Poniverse staff come up with it ourselves. What we're really trying to do is get members of our community (or new members of Poniverse who stumble across and are interested in this contest) involved in a fun way in our community.

While I certainly understand wanting to get people involved in your community, allowing other people to make your characters' backstory when you apparently already have ideas for said backstory is highly inefficient. According to what you told Soundslikeponies, you already have an idea of the "canon [you're] trying to carve out for these characters". Thus, it should hold to reason that, since you have already begun making a canon for the characters, you would be the ones to finish the job. Instead, it seems like you're allowing other people to do it for you, but the problem with this is that their ideas of a canon for the characters might not line up with what you already have in mind. It'd be much more conducive to both your goal of getting community involvement and of any possible entrant's goals of winning if your contest was about something that hasn't already been pre-defined by you; say, a contest about the characters spending a day at the beach or something like that. However, none of this is my primary reason for concern.

My primary reason for concern is that you've asked any and all entrants, in the case of their victory, to sign a form saying that they voluntarily relinquish any rights they own of their written work to you. Since you've failed to provide any proof of any sort of tangible recompense for this, this makes you look like you're not only trying to get something you want without paying for it, but also that you don't want the original creator of the work to be able to do anything about it. This is incredibly shady, and I would assume that it's something that you'd want to clarify, but you haven't responded to it. This worries me, as it appears to anyone who has been following this discussion closely that you're more interested in appearances than clarity. So, here is my question to you: how do you justify making an entrant relinquish any possible rights to their story in the event of their victory, on penalty of not receiving any prize for their work?

4540769
OK, first of all, when you use the word 'you', let me define for you who 'you' is so you understand where I'm coming from. I do not own or run Poniverse. I run our Fimfiction branch. The 'you' you keep referring to is a group of over 60 staff who have fluctuated over time and work across a multitude of websites and still do because we're all volunteers; none of us get paid for what we do, same as any staff on a Fimfiction group, except unlike Fimfiction groups which usually are lucky to hit 1,000 members and deal solely with fanfiction, we're dealing with a multitude of websites (our base one of which has over 30,000 members) which cater to television and movie streaming, music making, forum interaction/chatting, art sharing, roleplaying, and even gaming needs, along with a whole lot of other stuff. The characters were created long before we launched this contest (in other fan contests run by MLP Forums, mind you, not by staff), but have existed for so long by this point that some staff (myself not included) have semi-canon ideas about what they think they should be like in their own heads, but none of this except for what I offered in the personality profiles is written in stone.

It's as I said before, there are difficulties with this contest, but they are NOT difficulties of us being disingenuous with people who participate, they are difficulties that come with coordinating something like this between staff who operate on many different websites. I can't announce what prizes we'll have yet because each staff from each respective site is working hard to come up with what they plan to give away; that does NOT mean that we won't have prizes, we will, and I apologize that I can't offer a more concrete example of what we'll have at this time. But please, bear with me here and look at this from where I'm coming from. We're not Hasbro, we're not some corporation with millions of dollars that's trying to just get the fans to do leg work for us because we're lazy. We're volunteers from many different timezones all over the world who really love this collection of sites we give up our time for giving an admittedly ambitious endeavor our best shot (and I myself am largely running the contest since I handle all our fanfiction affairs for the most part), so please, bear with me and trust me, we are not trying to scam anyone. If any staff butt in during judging and say that one of our top entries has a number of elements that don't fit into their canon, I and other staff will do our best to monitor such behavior within reason. Not all of our staff work in fanfiction, so I'll be sure to be doing my best to help them understand how it works and that we are trying to give authors as much creative license as we can with these characters. But we're only human, and ones unpaid for our efforts here at that; there will be recompense, I assure you of that, but we just don't have it figured out at this time what that's going to be.

4540377
4540427
4540456
4540535
You heard it here first, I talked over with the head of Poniverse, and at his suggestion, we are going to offer a total of $300 in cash prizes. $50 prize for the winning fic for each mascot (a total of six prizes up for grabs), to be given as cash or used to purchase non-cash prizes.

4540952

You heard it here first, I talked over with the head of Poniverse, and at his suggestion, we are going to offer a total of $300 in cash prizes.

So, in other words, you initially did not have any intention of providing monetary compensation for the labor of others, despite, again, taking full ownership of the products of those labors. Putting aside the deeper legal, ethical, and proprietary issues at play here, this removal of the artist's investment in the final product is something a lot of us here (who, may I remind you, are also non-profit volunteers) are going to find difficult to accommodate. Understand, FimFic is a community which thrives on artistic expression (it's about all we have besides the clop). Removing that from the equation by demanding that whatever we write be taken from us and subjected to changes beyond our control, or otherwise plagiarized for future endeavors (which are what, exactly?), is pretty much poisoning the well with regards to artistic expression.

I think you owe it to your contestants to explain exactly why you are demanding sole rights—sole legal rights—because right now, there's only one real picture that can be drawn, and it isn't very friendly.

4541063
We had every intention of providing compensation, we just didn't know exactly how it would be provided until this afternoon. We've run a number of contests already that have never demanded anything like this of our contestants, but the only reason these demands are being made now is because again this contest involves characters that belong to Poniverse.net. Please do not think for a minute I don't respect artistic integrity here, I'm a writer and reader here same as the rest of you, I understand how important it is. Frankly, we feel we've made it quite clear in the contest OP already that getting involved in this contest, while one stands to reap rewards, is an investment on the author's part in the Poniverse community, not just creating something for the sake of their own artistic integrity. We are not forcing that on anyone, just anyone who chooses to participate. That means that, yes, authors who set out to participate from the start are choosing to work in the hopes of providing a piece of intellectual property that Poniverse may utilize which we will later own (especially IF the fic is a winning entry, that is). But again, that is a CHOICE that the author himself or herself must make. We're trying to be as honest as possible that this is a very different situation than most contests here, rather than hitting the winners with this only AFTER they win (THAT would be disingenuous and unethical). And at the same time, we're not just trying to get canon established for these characters, but trying to do so in an activity that gets the Poniverse community involved. That's a far harder route than simply commissioning fics or making our own canon, but we're trying our hardest to make it work, so please, be patient with us, no one's trying to pretend that this is going to be an easy process, but we certainly want it to be worthwhile for anyone who CHOOSES to participate knowing full well that if they win their fic will in essence belong to Poniverse.

4541091

Since it evidently got lost in the shuffle, I will reiterate plainly and simply: I think you owe it to your contestants to explain exactly why you are demanding sole rights—sole legal rights—because right now, there's only one real picture that can be drawn, and it isn't very friendly.

4541114
I don't quite get what unfriendly picture you're talking about, honestly. I've explained already that we're just trying to get some canon established for these characters, and we thought a fun way to do so would be to get the community involved. Prizes were intended to be given from the very start, the legal stipulations were demanded by the head of Poniverse for reasons I'm sure he could explain better than I can, but it's not like we're going to sue anyone if they keep writing stories with these characters, they simply won't be official canon. Again, I understand that it's a lot more legal jargon than people are used to for a contest here, but this is an unusual situation. I'm sure if GalaCon sponsored a fanfiction contest for Canni, they'd demand full legal rights for the winning fic as well if it were to establish some sort of canon for her, that's just the nature of how groups like this treat mascots unique to them. If you're still not sure what Poniverse is, I'll link it and our primary site to give you an idea why we have these legal requirements.

Poniverse.net

MLP Forums

I have to run now, so if you reply and I don't get back to you, don't think I'm ignoring you. I apologize again that I don't understand what unfriendly picture you seem to think the contest's legal stipulations are implying, because we really are trying as hard as we can to maintain creative liberty here.

4541135

So, in summary, you've reiterated the same points you've been spouting this entire time, to no greater effect than they have had previously; have once again failed to answer my question while attempting to pass responsibility for that failure onto your superior; have posted links to your site in an attempt to either enlighten or intimidate vis a vis this issue to no effect; and have promptly run off into the night without resolving anything, despite it, ostensibly, being your job to do so.

Perhaps I was unkind in my assessment, however. There are, in fact, a couple of interpretations, here. The first is that you intend to lock the author out of any further financial gain, aside from a potential $50, despite further and possibly expanded use of their work. The second is that this is a wholly incompetent PR effort that has failed to consider the potential repercussions of its presentation or adequately prepare its primary representative with all the information necessary to do his job.

Either way, the behavior in this thread does not reflect very well on you, this contest, or the community you represent.

4541251
I'm posting from my friend's place only because I'm trying to alleviate your concerns. Let me make this clear; we have no intention of making any money off of these fics. We have never had any plans to make any money from these fics. We don't plan on publishing them as books, and if we needed any edits made to them (which would only be the winning fics) we would collaborate with the authors to make edits that both parties were happy with, not just Poniverse, and not just mandating that they do this, this, or this. If this has come over as incompetent, then I take full responsibility for that. As I said, this is new for us and has been a learning process. But understand this, all we want for these characters are stories; once some are accepted as canon, if we need changes made, we will be sure to involve the stories creators. I don't know what else I can do to make people trust me aside from try my best to make this contest work, which I pledge to do to the best of my ability.

4541378

all we want for these characters are stories

And so we return to the all-encompassing question: why are you demanding sole legal rights? Or, put another way, why is it necessary to demand sole legal rights if this is your only intent?

4540856

OK, first of all, when you use the word 'you', let me define for you who 'you' is so you understand where I'm coming from. I do not own or run Poniverse. I run our Fimfiction branch. The 'you' you keep referring to is a group of over 60 staff who have fluctuated over time and work across a multitude of websites

I am very well aware of this. I'm not sure why you would think I wasn't; you made it very clear in your original post that you were talking about multiple people, particularly through your common use of the word "we" when referring to those who would be running and judging the contest.

4541135

because we really are trying as hard as we can to maintain creative liberty here.

I don't think this is entirely true. If you were trying your absolute hardest to maintain creative liberty, you wouldn't edit the entries afterwards. You still haven't explained what you mean when you say that you reserve the right to ask for "minor content changes". And, as you told Soundslikeponies in this comment of yours 4540653 if someone decides not to go along with those content changes, you can just make them lose the contest and that $50 cash prize. It worries me that your failure to address both this and our concerns about giving up the rights to the story are indicative of a truth that you don't want revealed about the nature of this contest, and your increasingly hostile attitude and repeated dodging of the questions presented to you do not help anyone's perception of you, your contest, or the rest of the organization which you represent.

I must echo 4541251 when he says that the information you've given to us is indicative of either an attempt to monetize an author's work without them sharing in any potential gain aside from that initial $50, or a very poorly executed PR attempt due to a lack of adequate pre-planning, as evidenced by your comment here 4541091 wherein you said that you didn't know what your 'special prizes' were actually going to be, even though the first mention I've seen of this contest on Fimfic is a little over a week ago, on the Poniverse group's official announcement of this contest.

4541400 also brings up a good point: if all you want for these characters is stories, then it's quite unnecessary to demand sole legal ownership of the story. If you are, perhaps, worried about an author withdrawing your story, you could just have easily said "If you win this contest, we're using the story as you entered it, and any edits you make to the story afterwards will not be reflected in our version". That covers you from an author deciding that they want to make a dramatic change or pull out altogether, no legal ownership required. A full legal ownership of the story really isn't necessary, and if it is, I fail to see why it would be. Considering how you have repeatedly failed to tell us why it's necessary, instead opting to tell us "just trust me on this one", I will continue to hold my position that you are running your contest in an incredibly shady manner until you prove me wrong.

4541444
4541400

Since it evidently got lost in the shuffle, I will reiterate plainly and simply: I think you owe it to your contestants to explain exactly why you are demanding sole rights—sole legal rights—because right now, there's only one real picture that can be drawn, and it isn't very friendly.

I'm Simon, head of Public Relations for Poniverse. I wanted to come on and try and clear up this situation a bit.

First of all, let me re-iterate, this is a contest, not a job interview. People are free to participate or not participate completely by their own choosing just like any other contest. That being said, this contest is to write the backstory that the characterizations of our mascots will be based on permanently, so it has some unique elements. Because we will not be in a position to repeatedly consult authors of winning fics on the use of their story and changes made to the backstory for purposes of future promotions, we have to make sure authors are fully aware before participating that we will be using these stories.

The reason for us wanting sole rights over the story, is that elements of the story will be used in future public relations efforts. For example, if we were to decide to create a comic down the road using our mascots as a promotional effort, it would likely incorporate elements of their backstory. Having legal rights over the story also makes it so that we can post the story to our site in a permanent archive to avoid the risk of it being taken down. Since these stories will be used permanently to tell the story of our OC's, it's important people are able to read them for a long time.

This is a chance to help us develop a group of characters that will represent our brand, and a chance to have your name on a really neat project, but this means we will be using elements of your story throughout our promotional efforts in the future Without legal rights to use the story as we please, we would risk facing trademark suits down the road from the authors of winning fics, and that's not a risk we're willing or able to take. We want to open up our OC's to allow the community to help create them and make them something special, but this means we will need to have the legal authority in writing to actually use this story. We're not running out and publishing the fics on Amazon to sell, we're just informing authors that they will have to allow us to use their story and concept of our characters in future promotions/events, and will have to give us those rights in writing so that there's no risk to our organization. I completely understand not wanting to participate because of this, and it's unfortunate that it is something we have to do to be able to run a contest of this nature, but it is necessary for the protection of Poniverse as an organization and this contest would not be able to run without it.

In terms of compensation. Please understand the nature of Poniverse. Our entire staff up to the highest levels of the organization are completely unpaid. The staff spends this time running this organization because it's meaningful to us, and we enjoy creating something special for everybody else. Speaking personally for a moment, I've worked for Poniverse for close to a year now, spent well over a thousand hours on working for Poniverse, and in all that time, I've not asked or received any compensation. The reason I tell you this is not to sound egotistical, but for you to understand that our organization would not exist if it weren't for the generosity of others. Yes, we from time to time ask the community to contribute to our organization with little or no compensation to help make our organization available to the fandom. This isn't because we're trying to exploit people, but because this is how our organization functions. As someone who has been involved in the planning of this contest from the beginning and the head of PR, I can tell you that it has always been the intention of providing some sort of a prize to the winners, we just weren't 100% sure what we'd be able to provide until now.

At the end of the day, the contest is what you make of it. It's a really unique opportunity for your work to go beyond just being a fanfic, and actually help create a story for our characters which to this point have only been designs without any sort of personalities. Yes, because of the nature of the contest, there are some drawbacks in terms of giving over some rights, but we've been nothing but transparent about this requirement, and it will ultimately be up to the authors to decide whether or not they are willing to participate in this contest.

I'm more than happy to answer any questions you may have about how the stories will be used, but the contest is what it is and we have little flexibility in changing it.

4542193

First of all, let me re-iterate, this is a contest, not a job interview.

Really? Because everything thus far has indicated that you're casting around for someone to do your work for you rather than to foment good sportsmanship or creativity. This contest is structured such that all agency is placed in the hands of the judges rather than the contestants. From the outset, you have placed restrictions on the contestants' creativity, and have further promised to impose more restrictions down the line. You have demanded that the creators give up their creation in exchange for compensation, just as an employer pays a worker for their labor. You have promised to withhold that compensation if your demands are not met.

In this scenario, you have numerous writers working for you, but you're only going to pay the one you like best. And since the winner is most likely to be whoever panders to the judges' tastes and expectations—making the "canon" they want to see—this undermines the spirit of creativity and good sportsmanship. Further, you are getting free labor from the majority of your contestants while paying—and this may come as a surprise to you—a sum which is pretty darn low for upwards of 25,000 words of any significant quality.

But, I suppose that should come as no surprise, since, in your own words, this is how your organization does business:

Yes, we from time to time ask the community to contribute to our organization with little or no compensation to help make our organization available to the fandom. This isn't because we're trying to exploit people, but because this is how our organization functions.

Putting all that aside, however, you have no legal backing to demand this from your contestants, anyway. Your OC's are certainly not registered trademarks—in fact, they are not trademarked at all—nor can they be, given they're already in the likeness of characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, an IP which is owned by Hasbro, Inc. The only thing you could even have a shade of demanding is copyright, and in regards to fanfiction, that issue is so muddled there is no point in arguing it in the first place. There is nothing in the law that gives you the right to demand this of your contestants, there is nothing in the law that will protect you from reprisal should someone decide to make a fuss about it (which, again, given the one-sided nature of the contest, is understandable), and if your organization is truly as communal and well-meaning as you indicate, you ought to have nothing to fear in the first place. But instead, you have built a line of trenches and outfitted them with razor wire and machine guns before even extending your hand to your userbase.

If you truly cared about the quality of results in regards to creating backstory for these characters, you might've simply let your community brainstorm and create together, rather than this one-sided, heavy-handed approach. You might've found an author, or two, or six with the level of skill you want, and been up-front with them concerning what results you wanted out of the deal. You might've had some faith in the people you ostensibly care about, rather than trying to place yourself on a level above them.

4542575
Perfect summary. Damn well done

4540317 As with all the contests on Fimfiction (no matter how contentious), I'll be promoting this one on my user page in an attempt to lure in more contenders. Good luck!

4540317 Yeah, I'm going to adhere to the majority opinion here and say that this isn't a very good contest. Heck, it's barely a contest at all.
I'm going to lock this one; if any of the other admins disagree with this decision, feel free to unlock it. I just feel that this isn't the kind of thing we want to support.
4542575 here illustrates my reasoning rather nicely.

Currently out shopping, can't really type up a full post; but thread is unlocked. There's no need to lock a thread like this one, especially when all participants are behaving nicely. TOW and I will write a post later about how we don't support contests like this; there's no need to stifle free discussion in the meantime.

4542784 Yeah... locking it was a bit much, wasn't it?

I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but one thing I will point out is I think some people are understanding exactly what the waiver is.

We're not trying to claim complete ownership over the characters or say that people have to sign the waiver to write a story about the characters. As Poniverse's PR head I can tell you that nothing would please me more than to see people inspired to use the mascots we have created in a work of theirs. However, since the winner of the contest's story will for all intents and purposes the "official" backstory of our mascots, we need to have the legal right to use elements from that story without risking the author claiming intellectual property rights over the character's story. In essence, it's not about us trying to control what other people do with our character, it's about making sure the authors don't try and prevent us from using the backstory they created as part of this contest. If you want to write a story about our characters but do not want to hand over rights, you are more than welcome to do so, but you won't be eligible to enter it in the contest since that would mean we could not use your story or elements of that story for our character.

This is not a scam or something unusual for this sort of contest. Any time any company runs a contest of this nature where they're asking members of the public to help create something that will be used by the company, they have to request similar waivers. For example, check out this paragraph from when Lays recently ran a contest asking people to come up with a flavor of chips:

"Any waiver of any obligation hereunder by Sponsor does not constitute a general waiver of any obligation to entrants. By accepting a prize, Winner agrees that his/her Entry will be deemed a Work Made For Hire under the Copyright laws of the United States, but if it cannot be so deemed, then the Winner irrevocably assigns and transfers to Sponsor all of his/her right, title and interest in and to his/her Entry, including all but not limited to all copyright and trademark rights which he or she may have, in the United States and worldwide, therein, for consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged. Winner hereby waives in favor of Sponsor, all rights of “Droit Moral” or “Moral Rights of Authors” or any similar rights or principles of law that Winner may now or later have to his/her Entry. Sponsor reserves the right to alter, change or modify the winning Entry, in whole or in part, in its sole discretion. Upon request of Sponsor, Winner shall execute and deliver such additional instrument of assignment, as may be solely deemed by Sponsor, reasonably necessary to establish the ownership of record of the right, title and interest in and to the Entry and of the copyrights transferred and “Moral Rights of Authors” waived under these Official Rules. Should Sponsor fail to request the said assignment as stated, that shall not be deemed a waiver of Sponsor’s rights and Sponsor may at a later time request the assignment."

Similarly, here's a waiver from a sportswear company asking people to design shirts:

"The Artworks may also be used for press and media purposes and Entrant agrees to waive any rights and not assert any intellectual property rights that Entrant has or may have in the Artwork. Organized Sportswear reserves the right to publish the name and likeness of the Entrants with the top 20 scores and the Winners on the Contest Site or through other media for publicity purposes. "

Same is true for all of those contests WeLoveFine runs for MLP and other franchises:

"I assign, or/and agree to assign, WeLoveFine all right, title and interest in and to the Design and the Entry, as such terms are defined in the Official Rules, including all trade dress, copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights. Such assignment shall include WeLoveFine’s unlimited ability to modify, amend or change the Entry and/or assign or license its rights in and to the Design and/or Entry."

The simple fact is, any time an organization asks the community to create something for them as part of a contest, it's going to be necessary for that organization to have a waiver of intellectual property rights in order to protect the company. If we didn't collect waivers from the winning entries, we'd not be able to use elements of that story without violating the author's IP rights.

As for the amount of the prize, I understand if you don't feel it's worth writing a fic for the chance to win $50. For some people it will be, for others it won't. We can only offer what we can afford to offer.

4542887

The simple fact is, any time an organization asks the community to create something for them as part of a contest, it's going to be necessary for that organization to have a waiver of intellectual property rights in order to protect the company.

Only when there's money involved. For example, getting people to design a new flavour of food that the organisation intends to sell. Or a new shirt design to be sold. Or a story to be published and monetised

4542895

Only when there's money involved. For example, getting people to design a new flavour of food that the organisation intends to sell. Or a new shirt design to be sold. Or a story to be published and monetised

IP suits are not dependent on whether the person made money on it or not. A person could sue our organization for using their story without securing proper IP rights.

If your concern is us trying to turn around and make money off of your story, I'll personally add to the contest now that the waiver will include a stipulation that Poniverse will only be granted authority to publish the story on our website and will not attempt to sell or monetize the story beyond the site ads that appear on our site already.

4542907

A person could sue our organization for using their story without securing proper IP rights.

Do you honestly believe anyone is going to sue you because you used a story they wrote for you?

And do you honestly believe any courtroom in the world wouldn't die laughing if such a case cropped up?

You can't really argue you're doing this to protect yourself, as there's nothing to protect yourself from. If you're really that scared of the writers somehow turning rabid and developing a severe case of lawyers, all you'd need to add is a stipulation saying "By submitting your stories, you agree to let Poniverse use it as canon if it wins". None of this "give us total ownership of every entry" stuff. Cos the total ownership stuff just reeks of shady business. And no matter how many times you say "trust us, we're not shady", you haven't actually given an reason to do so.

4542920

Do you honestly believe anyone is going to sue you over the fact that you used a story they wrote for you?

Sorry, law school grad here. I don't rely on whether it's likely for someone to file a lawsuit. I've learned in my time in law school that when you run things like this sloppily while you're a small or mid-sized organization, it's only going to cause problems later on when your organization grows. Call it being paranoid, call it me attempting to cover our butts for down the road, call it whatever you like. I can't in good conscience run a contest that doesn't secure us the proper rights to use a fic that will protect our organization.

I've offered to include a provision of not monetizing the fic. I'll be adding this to the contest anyway now. But beyond this, I'm not sure what else I can do to assure you guys we're just trying to find a way to involve the community in building our mascots while making sure the author isn't going to decide they don't like the story in a month and ask us to quit using it, or take it down so nobody can see it, or sue us for using the story they created down the road when we're an organization worth suing.

If you have any specific concerns about handing over rights and how it will be used, feel free to ask me about it and I'll answer your questions. But the fact that users will have to give us the right to use the elements of the story in future promotion efforts is not negotiable. I'm sorry to hear some of you don't want to participate in the contest because of this, but that's ultimately the authors choice to make.

For the time being, I'll be editing the waiver clause to state the following on MLP Forums and elsewhere where this is posted:

"Authors of winning entries will be required to sign a formal agreement that transfers intellectual property rights for the use and publicly available free publication of the fic in its entirety to Poniverse.net in order for their entries to be fully accepted as Poniverse canon and claim their prizes. Poniverse's intellectual property rights will not include the ability to publish the stories for sale or monetize the stories beyond publishing them in a publicly available format on any of Poniverse's websites."

4542887

one thing I will point out is I think some people are understanding exactly what the waiver is.

Yes indeed, I am very understanding of exactly what the waiver is. I am also understanding of what its implications are for the nature of this contest and its participants. Hence, this ongoing discussion. Putting aside the fact that you've failed to address the concerns I've raised surrounding the artistic integrity and the inherent problems with the structure of the contest, let's dissect your opening paragraph.

We're not trying to claim complete ownership over the characters or say that people have to sign the waiver to write a story about the characters.

Except, in the context of this contest, that's exactly what you're doing. In fact, it bears repeating that the author must sign a waiver in order to gain any tangible benefit from this contest, and that you are demanding final creative input on all of the authors' entries.

we need to have the legal right to use elements from that story without risking the author claiming intellectual property rights over the character's story.

Except you don't. Not if, as you have intimated, you hold an amicable relationship with your users. Not if you involve the creator past the contest's conclusion, like a respectful equal would. Not if you don't take the creator's work from them, slip them a Grant, and then shut the door in their face. Instead of fostering a relationship of mutual trust, you are instead securing yourself and only yourself at the cost of integrity and, as this thread has demonstrated, public standing. If you don't trust your userbase, why are you having them work for you?

In essence, it's not about us trying to control what other people do with our character, it's about making sure the authors don't try and prevent us from using the backstory they created as part of this contest.

Again, in the context of this contest and beyond, you are very much attempting to control what other people do with your characters. And you are further demonstrating the rift in trust you opened by not approaching the contestants in good faith.

Now, as to those examples you've so kindly shared, there is a key distinction to make here. Both Lay's and Welovefine are incorporated companies. You are not. You lack the registered trademarks, the official licenses, and the legal standing to demand any sort of legally-binding contract with your userbase. Again, the only reason this could possibly hold water is in the case of copyright, and even then, it'd never make it to court—unless, of course, there's monetary benefit involved, because you don't involve the law unless there's something to gain or something to lose.

No matter how you slice it, there is far greater benefit for the entity running the contest than those actually participating in it. Again, the nature of this entire contest is not so much a competition among writers to showcase their ability and creativity, but a means for the contest-runners to acquire something of value which they will continue to utilize and profit from in the future while denying the original creator any further input or benefit. If this is how you handle PR over on your site, I pity your users, especially since you don't trust them enough to invite them into this affair with open arms.

EDIT:
4542946

But beyond this, I'm not sure what else I can do to assure you guys we're just trying to find a way to involve the community in building our mascots while making sure the author isn't going to decide they don't like the story in a month and ask us to quit using it, or take it down so nobody can see it, or sue us for using the story they created down the road when we're an organization worth suing.

Here's your After-Action Review: plan out all the details of your presentation before you make it, especially in regards to prizes and ensuring your subordinates are properly briefed; consider the ramifications of your contest organization and what its end goals are to ensure you're actually accomplishing what it is you're out to accomplish; contemplate the implications of your wording, because—take it from a writer, law grad—words matter; and above all, don't shove a legal shotgun into the faces of your potential participants right off the bat, as it's only reasonable for someone to be off-put by a firearm in the face. And use this knowledge going forward, because you're too late to use it now.