Bauer Media's (Mojo, Kerrang! and Q Magazine) "draconian" freelance contracts

I just read the rather shocking story at The Quietus about the new freelancer contracts Bauer Media is using. They seem pretty astonishing to me. No legal indemnity on the publisher's part, surrender of all rights to future uses of your printed work (meaning no books of your essays/columns without Bauer's permission), surrender of "moral rights" to your work, it all seems very bad. I've written for magazines before, and I can't imagine signing something so draconian in nature, especially in an age of ascendant new media alternatives to getting your work out there.

I know that there are plenty of music critics and journalists on these boards, so what do you think? Would you sign Bauer Media's contract? Does this change your opinion of Mojo, Kerrang!, and Q? Would you stop purchasing them over this?

More on this, here.

What I'm curious about finding out is whether Bauer are typical for a German media company and that is the journo's lot over there or whether they are just a particularly aggressive company by anyone's standards.

fuck kerrang and its mallrock pish

Wow. What a cuntish sentiment.

I would have thought that everyone could at least have agreed that no-one deserves to be treated like this.

Kerrang is (at present) a very bad magazine. That said, this freelance contract is completely fucking onerous - so much so that my ordinary reaction ("Freelancers fleeing in droves? Think I'll pitch that editor this week!") goes right out the window.

Im not talking about it's writers, I'm talking about
Does this change your opinion of Mojo, Kerrang!, and Q? Would you stop purchasing them over this?

And I gave my opinion on Kerrang.

Of course the contract is wrong, I thought it went without saying.

Well, quite... but given the amount of people (plenty of whom post on here) are about to [literally in some cases] lose their livelihoods, I thought maybe this wasn't quite the best place for stating such blunt opinions on K!

I'd say the thing that goes without saying in this instance is that K! isn't WIRE or Creem in 1975 or whatever but the actual thing of interest - that would actually bear being discussed - is what the ramifications are to the industry in general. And by that I mean all freelance journalism across Europe and America.

But maybe not.