Kalkion Magazine

They also publish stuff under Creative Commons licenses, so anything they decide to publish would be freely available for others to use.

From: http://kalkion.com/content/copyright-and-licences

Poetry, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror
Poetry, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. This license means that you, as a user, are 'Free' to copy, distribute and transmit the work for Non-Commercial purposes. However, you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Read more about the 'freedom' you get by using Fiction/poetry published on Kalkion.

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Creative Commons has its pros and cons, but it's not something to stumble into unknowingly.

Why is it that it's only virtually unknown websites and magazines that do this sort of rights-grabbing? It if was Fantasy & Science Fiction or The New Yorker, at least I'd know that I'd be getting good exposure in a vetted market and getting paid. I might give up rights for that, but of course those markets tend to actually respect authors, and so would never assume to take those rights.

Really, it looks like the contest is a way for Kalkion to farm for free content for their site.

Response from Kalkion

Hi all,

Thanks for brining this issue to my notice. We had no intention of grabbing a writer's rights. We sincerely apologise for any confusion.

As I replied to Vaguely Piratical via an email I would like to give a background where we come from.

After reader Will's email I went through the thread and read concerns of the authors. I do agree with such concerns being a journalist and writer myself.

We are staunch supporter of sharing of knowledge. We have other magazines, the flag ship being Muktware.com, a Linux and Open Source web magazine. There we publish articles written by other writers and we pay for it. We don't claim any ownership on such work and release it under a creative commons licence for others to use.

We have a team of in-house journalists which conducts exclusive interview and writes news items, articles and large manuals (something which takes up a lot of effort and time) -- we release all of 'our' work under creative commons licence for free of cost.

So, we have no evil agenda of taking ownership of someone else's work

The terms on the contest page, along with licences for regular submissions have been changed to address the problem. Please have a look and suggest.

http://kalkion.com/blog/1232/kalkion-rights-rewritten

"The author of the work retains all rights which he/she already holds over the work submitted to Kalkion. The author is the 'owner' of the submitted work.

Kalkion reserves the right to removes any content without prior notice to the author. Kalkion reserves the rights to republish the content on its sister sites in 'text' (online) format. Kalkion reserves the rights to translate the published work in any language in 'text' (online) format.

If we do plan to publish/produce your work in any other format – printed, audio or video, we will get in touch with you and will do so under a new contract, subject to your acceptance."

Best
Swapnil Bhartiya
Editor
Kalkion.com
Muktware.com

"Be sure you do that before submitting to see if you want your story alongside those (and you should do this anywhere, by the way). It's eye-opening."

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Shelley, this is an interesting insight. Will you please elaborate what you meant by "It's eye-opening" so that we know what was your obervation and what was the need for the warning "if you want your story alongside those".

Thanks.

Swapnil Bhartiya

Hi Swapnil, thanks for stopping by to address the questions raised in this thread. In addition to helping writers recognize scams, the BRBC exists to help us understand the process of publishing and make informed choices about what we do with our work. I obviously can't speak for Shelley, but I imagine that what she meant by her recommendation to read through the work on the site before submitting was to be aware of what you will be published alongside because you will be judged by it.

My apologies to Mr Zacher, this is simply the first story on the website.

It was four days until Halloween, and the Grand Hotel has finally had its “grand” opening two weeks ago.

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The first line of Hurts' Revelation by Alan Zacher.

in-room dining and in-room messages;

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From the same, what is an "in-room message"? I think it's meant to be massage.

In spite of all of that, the Grand Hotel had finally opened, and now, with Halloween just four days away, and it having been such a quiet Tuesday evening, too, at exactly seven p.m, there was another suicide and a murder.

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From the same. I didn't read any further because I've (hopefully) illustrated my point. It's bad news when a dyslexic is finding editorial mistakes.

ETA I been poking further around the site and I second Shelley's recommendation anybody considering submitting do so also. Swapnil, my eye-opener was a Sci Fi story whose main character is called "The Doctor".

arnieswap said:

We don't claim any ownership on such work and release it under a creative commons licence for others to use.

[...]

So, we have no evil agenda of taking ownership of someone else's work

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I'm not sure I understand the logic, or the good intentions, of the first statement I've quoted here. You may not be claiming ownership, but your actions are negating the ownership of the writer by allowing their work to be reproduced at will without payment.
It may not be an evil agenda, but owners of Warez sites don't see themselves as having an evil agenda either. I, personally, would not submit to you if you had these terms for the fiction you publish. If my writing - or anything else I do - gets slapped with a CC license, it will be because I have put it on there.

If you do not put a CC license on your published fiction, I'm not entirely clear why you brought it up here.

I'm not sure I understand the logic, or the good intentions, of the first statement I've quoted here. You may not be claiming ownership, but your actions are negating the ownership of the writer by allowing their work to be reproduced at will without payment.

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No. Please read the terms:
In-house news, articles blogs and editorials will be released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. This license means that anyone is free to use the content anywhere as long as he/she adherers to the license.

Content submitted by non-staff authors, which includes Fiction, Poetry, Art will be released under the second licence 'Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.' Read more about the licence here. However, if you don't want to release your work under a creative commons licence, you can request that with your submission and we will respect that.

It may not be an evil agenda, but owners of Warez sites don't see themselves as having an evil agenda either.

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There is huge difference between Warez P2P sharing and CCL licence. Wikipedia is a better example of CCL than Warez. There are stricter CCL licence which don't allow reproduction for commercial purposes. While Warez encourages unauthorized redistribution, CCL is willingness of the author to share content for non-commercial purposes.

However, as we mentioned earlier, creative content is available under non-CCL licence as well and author can choose that.

If you do not put a CC license on your published fiction, I'm not entirely clear why you brought it up here.

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Just to clarify that we are not for right grabs. On the contrary we are releasing our commercial content under CCL.

Best Wishes
Swapnil

shelleyo said:

It wasn't meant in insult, just an observation. Some sites post whatever they get, and serve as a sort of vanity boost for writers who submit. That's fine. But your editorial team page might lull some writers into thinking that's not the case and that stories and poems are chosen on merit and gone over for clarity and quality by an editor, which they're not. Hence my warning.

Shelley

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I think anyone looking at the website knows just from looking at the copyright page that this isn't a professional market. They don't use standard terms when talking about the rights they want. They start by explaining who owns the copyright on a work, which means they assume the reader does not know. It is brand new and doesn't pay.

They are pretty clearly angling for brand new authors just looking to be published somewhere. I don't think the editorial team page has enough lulling power to overcome the rest of the site.

shelleyo said:

Due diligence is up to them, and I hope anyone can see the facts for themselves, but since this is the forum for discussing warnings and recommendations, it seemed worth mentioning.

Shelley

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True, I withdraw my comment. With the small stipulation that lulling people into believing has a connotation of purposeful deceit. From my interaction with them I don't think that's the case (I also don't think you meant to imply it). I get the feeling that they are simply enthusiastic and clueless about fiction publishing.

shelleyo said:

It's actually at least a couple of years old now.

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Huh, you're right. Swapnil registered the domain name 3/25/2009 and the first post is 4/15/2009. Why does the other thread call it a new site? Also, how have the rights issues not come up in over two years?

That kind of skeeves me out.

shelleyo said:

That thread was started when the site was new in 2009.

Shelley

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Shows how much attention I was paying.

*just had her eyes opened*

Thanks, shelleyo and vaguely ...

shelleyo said:

It's actually at least a couple of years old now. And you're right that most will realize it's not a professional market, but some new writers may not. While many might not care because they just want to be able to say they're published, others that don't really know better might be surprised to find they've gained nothing by putting a story on a site filled with poor writing, that doesn't pay and should not be listed on a cover letter in submissions to professional markets. There's simply nothing to gain by submitting there. We know that; lots of new writers don't.

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I don't think I can add more value to this thread. So, I will conclude my contribution to this thread with this last reply. I wish you had read our About Us page which would have given you more idea about our efforts. The accusations may have stopped there. But you are free to discuss. That's what forums are for

I am copy pasting the text from the About Us page.

http://kalkion.com/content/about-us

Kalkion is a Literature & Science Fiction web-magazine. It is a collaborative effort of passionate writers who have come together for a noble cause. We publish mainstream literature as well as genre literature such as Science Fiction.

The most important goal we have in mind, is to publish aspiring as well as established writers. While we publish established and known writers we also encourage new talent which can carry the baton to the next generation of SF writers. We are also creating an atmosphere of community where our editors will make efforts to work with the writers and improve upon their stories.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact via email.

Best of luck with your writings.

Thanks for your mail Will that I got to know about this forum.

Swapnil Bhartiya

arnieswap said:

I don't think I can add more value to this thread. So, I will conclude my contribution to this thread with this last reply. I wish you had read our About Us page which would have given you more idea about our efforts. The accusations may have stopped there. But you are free to discuss. That's what forums are for

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With respect, no one is doubting you intentions here. But good intentions do not always lead to good results. And please don't play the victim card, no one here has accused you of anything. We are making objective observations of your site, which includes the very basic English mistakes within your stories.

And, for what it's worth, even if you are not going to actively contribute to this thread, I do suggest you come check it out once in a while, since when I do a search on Google for "kalkion" this thread is on the first page of results.

arnieswap said:

I am copy pasting the text from the About Us page.

http://kalkion.com/content/about-us

Kalkion is a Literature & Science Fiction web-magazine. It is a collaborative effort of passionate writers who have come together for a noble cause. We publish mainstream literature as well as genre literature such as Science Fiction.

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While I again commend your intentions, "passionate writers" do not always make good editors. I've looked through some of your stories and there are some very basic English mistakes that any editor should have caught.

arnieswap said:

The most important goal we have in mind, is to publish aspiring as well as established writers. While we publish established and known writers we also encourage new talent which can carry the baton to the next generation of SF writers. We are also creating an atmosphere of community where our editors will make efforts to work with the writers and improve upon their stories.

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And here's the bigger problem, which you do not seem interested in addressing. You are not encouraging new talent by publishing substandard works, and you are not helping anyone if you do not edit those works first before you publish them for the world to see. This is no different from other display sites that allow anyone to post their works. Either you need to be more selective about what you publish or you need a better editor.

I think as writers we have to be careful about the company we keep. If I wanted to publish my shorts, I would worry that my publisher also accepts works that are filled with very basic English problems and then publish them without an edit. It would make me look bad.