necromancerannie:

elfwreck:

writersyoga:

therarestunderrated:

s-n-arly:

greater-than-the-sword:

Underlined PSA

Figment, the recently closed writing website, has just launched (after a long delay) their long-awaited successor to figment known as Underlined, where users can post their work and receive feedback, supposedly.

DO NOT USE UNDERLINED. DO NOT POST YOUR WORK ON UNDERLINED.

Underlined’s terms and conditions contains a clause stating that the rights to all your work that you post on their website belongs to them!!!!

Underlined belongs to Penguin Random House. This is an extremely dirty trick for them to play on writers, especially young writers and children, who come to the internet to get feedback and will lose the rights to their work. Please boost!!!

For my writing friends looking for an online writing community, DO NOT USE Underlined. 

I went to confirm @greater-than-the-sword‘s post, because seriously publishers are still pulling this garbage?  And yes, they are.  If you want to check out the full terms and conditions, have at it.  They are full of writers’ nightmares, a few of which I’ll highlight under the cut.

Keep reading

Be aware guys

As someone who used to use Figment, I would really strongly recommend NOT using Underlined. DO NOT USE Underlined.

In case you don’t want to click through the “keep reading” link (emphasis added): 

By posting your content on the Sites, you expressly grant PRH a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up worldwide, fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, perform and display such content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Submission, in whole or in part, and in any form throughout the world in any media or technology, whether now known or hereafter discovered…  

Once you post it there, while they claim you still own it, all that means is “you can republish it somewhere else too.” You can’t remove it if they want to keep using it. They have the right to bundle “best posts from Underline” and sell them, without paying the authors. THEY GET TO USE YOUR NAME, and your picture if you’ve posted that. 

Note: Children who’ve gotten accounts may have a way to get their rights back; children can’t be required to stick to a contract.