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Ok, let me start this off by saying that I am no expert on contracts, nor am I even especially knowledgeable about them. That being said I find the state of contracts and way they're drafted in e-sports absolutely ludicrous, and not in a good way like the rapper. My education relating to writing and reading contracts is limited. I graduated with a BAA in Illustration of all things, but did take two courses related almost entirely to contracts, but mostly from a freelance illustration perspective.
That makes recent events all the more confusing. Shouldn't people who's jobs it is to write contracts constantly have at least a limited understanding of how to write a contract?
So what did I learn and why is some of the stuff that comes out of E-Sports so baffling to me? What I learned was basically simple is better. You put in terms relating to exactly what you're selling/buying and conditions relating to them. The time frame concerning the work pertains to only the duration of the relationship between the two parties and does not extend to any other body of work that you may publish either with the company or elsewhere. You are not selling yourself, your work, your style, or your intellectual property, you are selling the rights for them to use this work for exactly whatever is in the contract and NOTHING ELSE. No hidden clauses or awkwardly worded sentences. If it sounds fishy, or wordy it can probably be simplified or should be removed. SIMPLE IS BEST.
The first thing that we learned in contracts is that you don't put stuff on a contract that doesn't have any direct importance to the issue at hand. Using an example from my classes, let's say you've been contracted by Loreal to design a magazine spread add for a new hair product. The contract then should only have have terms pertaining to that specific piece of work in that specific magazine. If Loreal is running the add in Chatelaine's April edition as a full page spread then that's what they pay you for and that's all they get to use it for. If they want anything else from you, then they need to sign another contract. It's as simple as that.
An example contract for the above job would read something like this: Date, Client, Address (of client), telephone(contact info), Description of work, Usage, A break down of Dates, A fee breakdown, and your own Contact information. Also a list of Terms and Conditions, which would include: Things like you retaining your rights to the artwork, being responsible for copyright infringement, any Non disclosure agreements that may have to be in place, and release dates for publication.
When I heard of this you can't live in another progaming establishment for 10 years business I was floored. Not because I thought it was a slimy move, or that MoW had taken advantage of Fuzer, or anything of the sort. Mostly I thought how could anyone think that something this ridiculous should ever be in a contract? My second thought was how could either party enter this relationship, where so much is exchanged, without a contract already in place? Both parties are just asking to be taken advantage of, and so we reached the inevitable conclusion of the bad press drama explosion.
I think both parties are to blame, and let me go into some explanation.
For Ministry of Win, don't take money, or take on a resident in good faith. Get a contract first. And don't make these bullshit boiler maker contracts where you're asking for unreasonable demands expecting them to be edited out. Write a contract tailored to the specific player, tailored to what they want out of their stay and what their needs are going to be for the duration of their stay. Keep it specific and simple, no abstract bullshit, and nothing in perpetuity. Nothing else. How hard is it to sit down and hammer out a contract in one go? Well, turns out, not hard at all if you keep it simple.
For Fuzer. I don't know where to begin. The most important part is don't procrastinate on a contract. Just write out what you believe is necessary for your stay and don't add anything else. If they don't plan on signing it or if their demands are unreasonable find somewhere else to live. No one is forcing you to sign a contract, ante up money and live at MoW. It's entirely your choice. If you don't trust them or think there's some sneaky shady shit going on then just forget it.
TLDR Contracts shouldn't be complicated.
Sorry for the somewhat rambling nature of the blog, I've been away from college for a few years and can't find all the notes I had on contracts that I had planned on using to help me write this.
 
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Many contracts are long for a reason: they have to specify virtually possible scenario so that both sides don't find loopholes to exploit the contract. Generally, the more money involved, the longer the contract.
For example, a contract for renting an apartment: It would be really simple if the contract wrote "The tenant is responsible for all payments concerning the apartment and to pay for all damages to the apartment". Sounds good right? What happens if the plumbing bursts for reasons beyond your control? What happens if a tornado passes through your apartment and levels it? According to the contract, the tenant is supposed to pay for damages, but does this make sense in these cases? No. That's why the contract specifies which party is responsible for which types of potential damages. Yeah it's a bitch to have to read through long contracts, but a well written one that both parties completely agree on serves to benefit both sides.
But yeah, retarded clauses like the 10 year non competition clause should be shot down. Now that's abusing the fact that the tenants can't understand English well. So read the contract well and engage a lawyer ASAP if you have doubts, not wait for 1.5 months.
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As Heh said, those contracts have a reason for their length. They have to plug a ton of loopholes on both ends, and must do so because they can't employ big blanket criteria (which could screw over people in numerous situations etc). And yeah, the non-competition clause comes standard on these kinds of contracts, but the 10-year thing (among several other small caveats I have with the general situation) make is sort of fishy. Clearly it was the fault of both parties involved to an extent, and I hope in the future this won't have to happen again.
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When I heard of this you can't live in another progaming establishment for 10 years business I was floored. Not because I thought it was a slimy move, or that MoW had taken advantage of Fuzer, or anything of the sort. Mostly I thought how could anyone think that something this ridiculous should ever be in a contract?
Whenever you offer a service that's not something the market already has in decent supply and it also took you lots of effort to be able to offer it in the first place non-competition clauses are completely standard and a useful thing to have.
As an example, one of the things I do on a regular basis are workshops with the goals of getting rid of test anxiety, being able to freely speak in front of a crowd of people and, more general, to increase self-confidence. That's a market with a sometimes insane competition but also with lots of random and at times quite low-quality offers.
Now, if any of our competitors can freely join our seminars, copy our scripts or general ideas and can put them up themselves, do you genuinely think that's something that should be the standard? It's my intellectual property, that's what that concept is all about. Non-compete clauses protect exactly that interest, they're the only thing that warrents putting in a year or more time into developing concepts which you can implement without being afraid of someone taking 5 hours to steal it.
I have a feeling that none of the people who bash the non-compete clauses as something incredibly irregular and out of line about the whole MoW topic have had anything to do with stuff like coaching or giving seminars/workshops. The security that none of your students can steal your ideas and open up their own business allows you to develop much more complex and in the end much more beneficial concepts for your students.
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Good blog, I pretty much agree with everything you said. Simple is usually better but often times it has to be wordy lawyer gibberish to be perfectly legal and safe against attacks/compkaints of any description.
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The easy answer is that 99% of all that does business in the SCII community are armatures.
Within professional businesses there is a classic model which deal with four different sophistication level;
The first level is the awareness of that you make money if you have a business.
Second level is that you pretend or simply imitate to be a company and simply performs trades or transactions, as in you are not really a company, you are only exchanging services, think of it as going to a market place to shop for food or to sell something on Ebay.
The third is that you are following all the rules and practices and actually have a fundamental understanding of business as a concept and that you follow the obligations that comes with it as the company grows, which is:
1) ALWAYS abide the jurisdiction, this includes proper conduct on how to make contracts.
2) ALWAYS abide by Ethics, this is what is beyond the law, its about doing what is right.
3) ALWAYS keep the customer satisfied when making trade.
4) ALWAYS pay the people that are employed in your business.
5) ALWAYS abide to make the stock holders satisfied, this is if your company is big enough to make out on the stock market.
6) ALWAYS give something back to the world, take a part of your earnings and give to charity. Only for the billion makers out there.
Fourth and last level is actually doing level three with GREAT success. Since this includes step 6 it also usually means you are doing shit ton of money.
Now 99% of the people doing business in SCII are level 2. They are pretending or playing being businesses when in reality they have the same understanding as the guy who tries to to sell something off ebay or tries to make a deal with a group of people on the local fruit market. Their understanding of even the most basic two steps, which is jurisdiction and ethics is disgusting, this does not make them bad or evil people, I'm saying that their UNDERSTANDING, or SKILLSET is disgusting, and they need to educate themselves in it.
Summary:
The business side of SCII is run by amateurs who instead of making money and seeing to that the customers are happy with their services pisses people off instead.
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EPT
