Chapter 315 - Copyright issue (1/2)
Yixin was Meng Fan’s editor-in-chief. Even the unsigned “Guide to Campus RoMANce” was managed by his team. No need to mention how good Meng Fan’s drawing skills and painting style were; it went without saying. Of course, it’s weird how visible the difference was in his level in the previous serialized comics and in what they were looking at now. However, the better the paintings, the better. No matter how strange it was, you can’t question it face to face.
What’s the use of questioning anyways, other than not allowing people to improve? It’s only that this progress was really great, that’s all.
The deputy editor-in-chief and the others had also seen Meng Fan’s comics and knew about Meng Fan’s drawing skills, so after unfolding the sketches, even though they could see the beauty of the world, they weren’t as amazed as Goro Takahashi and others.
But after looking at the paintings, they moved on to storyline and character design, and their eyes lit up again.
Three scenes was obviously not much, but they saw Meng Fan’s skillfulness in screenwriting and mirroring.
After reading, their first thought was ‘Why did it end so quickly?’ and a desire for continuation.
Looking back, there were already scenes which stuck in their minds and couldn’t be easily erased, they left such a deep mark and a profound memory.
Like the tip of the iceberg, the world structure was revealing itself slowly; not much was said. These two characteristics were enough to guarantee a good comic.
Looking again at the outline and the pictures, it was clear that Meng Fan put a lot of effort into preparation of this comic.
Yixin, the deputy editor-in-chief, and others took their eyes from the sketches to look at Meng Fan and picked up the topic.
The deputy editor-in-chief was a man surnamed Zhu, who was probably in his forties, and looked very fierce and serious.
“Mr. Meng, please allow me to ask you a question first. Yesterday, a fight happened in Japan. Many people know that you were involved, including the Japanese. May I ask, what does Kodansha think of this?”
Not waiting for Meng Fan to answer, he added: “I don’t mean nothing bad by this. It is about whether you can sign a contract with Kodansha and whether the comics can be serialized in the magazine published by Kodansha. This is also related to the contract between us. Whether you sign or not will definitely have an impact on our contract. What do you say?”
“Kodansha has already contacted me before our meeting.” Meng Fan answered with a smile. “Of course, I cannot say the fighting incident didn’t have any effect. However, currently there are no problems with signing the contract.”
After taking a sip of water, Meng Fan was ready to take the initiative in his own hands and said: “To be honest, I could have signed with Kodansha when I was in Japan. I didn’t do it at once only because I want the comics to be serialized also on the domestic website. I’m leaving some room for domestic websites to put forward requirements and conditions. If it can lead to a win-win situation, or even a triple-win situation, then it is naturally the best.”
On the other hand, I could give the copyrights for Japan to Kodansha and the copyrights for Huaxia to you. In practice, it would lead to both sides not needing to interact very often. The only possible overlap would be the ownership of copyrights for the animated series. Naturally, I could first take this matter into my own hands and wait for the most profitable conditions, then find a team myself or join you and Kodansha for production.”
Meng Fan listed the very simple contents of the contract he had prepared before and proceeded to persuade deputy editor-in-chief Zhu and said: “I will give you the copyrights to the series uploaded on Chinese websites, offprint publications, works of creative co-workers, and audios. I want to keep the rest of the copyrights, such as film or tv series adaptation rights. For copyrights concerning games and animation, I am very happy to cooperate with Penguin Animation Network.”
Deputy editor-in-chief Zhu heard him out, kept frowning, muttered for a moment, and at last said: “Actually, you can authorize all other copyrights to us. After all, the resources we can provide are much larger than yours, and we can find better buyers for you. Taking profit into consideration, we are the best choice.”
Meng Fan shook his head with a smile.
“This is indeed true from the perspective of income, but income is not the biggest priority for me.”
Meng Fan didn’t say that he didn’t care about money at all.
“I also want to earn something, but I don’t want my work’s purpose to be just making money and nothing more. So, I really care about whether I can make decisions. Of course, I may not be able to succeed in the end. But well, it always feels more comfortable to destroy something with one’s own hands. As for the resources you mentioned, I can actually find them; but obviously it won’t be as convenient for me as it is for your big company.”
All authors attached great importance to copyrights, especially after the negotiations had been established. Naturally, they wanted as much copyright as possible to stay in their hands. The profit was of secondary importance. It wasn’t just acclaimed writers like Meng Fan or Mr. Sleepy but an overwhelming majority of authors. Basically everyone thought so, but sometimes it just wasn’t realistic. It’s just that not many people were willing to exchange the control over their work for little money.