September 1996

IPC's 3-way bet

Some IPC publications seem to want to get your rights every which way. New Scientist, for one, sends out letters asking you to sign away your rights in each commissioned piece and it (still) asks you to sign them away again on the back of the cheque (which a straightforward reading of the law shows to be illegal). Now it has sent out one of those "updating our contributors' database" letters... please sign... you guessed?

Are their lawyers nervous, or what?

Advice is, as always, not to sign if you can possibly avoid it: and to sign away the minimum you possibly can if you can't.