Age and Behavior Requirements; Privacy and Contributor Assignment of Rights Agreement – Young Writers Project
Welcome to Young Writers Project (YWP), a creative online community of teen writers and visual artists.
Privacy policy: All personal information collected from you directly is kept private and will not be shared with anyone unless your work is published externally, in which case, you give YWP consent to use your real name. You are required to give YWP accurate information. Inaccurate information will result in your account not being activated or being blocked from the site.
YWP reserves the right to contact you to verify that the work on your blog is yours; notify you when work has been selected for publication, awards, and recognition; update you regarding YWP events, news, or policies.
Age and behavior requirements. You must be 13-19 years of age to register for an account on this website. We encourage younger writers and artists to keep creating, and to return to YWP to start their own accounts as soon as they turn 13. Teachers do not need accounts to explore the site and use YWP's challenges and resources.
Behavior: YWP's guiding rule is: Be respectful. Respect keeps YWP an oasis of civility on the web. This applies to all posts and interactions on the site. We regularly monitor the site, and every effort is made to ensure that all users’ experiences are positive. It is the responsibility of every member of the YWP community to use the site in a responsible manner and exercise common sense to ensure their own safety, including not publicly revealing personal information such as addresses and phone numbers.
YWP's Editorial Policy: Young Writers Project strives to create a safe, respectful, positive space for young writers and artists. We encourage free expression, however as a matter of policy and common publishing practice, we exercise editorial discretion and reserve the right to remove from the website any material we deem inappropriate. Such material would include but not be limited to:
- Content that portrays or encourages intolerance, violence, cruelty, or self-harm;
- Language that is threatening, defamatory, discriminating, bullying, hurtful, uncivil, or unkind;
- Content that is not your original work. No plagiarism or “borrowing” from other writers or artists. No AI.
Contributor Assignment of Rights: Young Writers Project, Inc., is a small, independent, non-profit organization, a 501(c)3, that provides young writers and artists a creative online space and opportunities for publication. To do this, YWP must establish clear legal ownership to ensure we have the rights to publish the works being submitted to external publications and to authorize publication of the works in other publications of any format, including YWP’s own. Upon your acceptance of the agreement below, YWP will retain the copyright to all material submitted; HOWEVER, YWP immediately reassigns back to you, unconditionally, ALL commercial rights to do whatever you wish with your work without any need to contact us, credit us or pay us. AND should you ever need the full copyright for an individual piece of work, please contact us and we will assign back to you that copyright. This is a legal and sensible solution to YWP’s need to be able to easily and efficiently publish your work with external partners – newspapers, magazines, other web sites – and in YWP’s own publications, including the anthology and digital magazine. In summary, YWP retains copyrights to publish your work, but you retain the commercial copyrights to do anything you wish with your piece forever.
By submitting this work to Young Writers Project Inc., you are hereby granting your consent and agreement to the following:
Young Writers Project irrevocably owns rights, title and interest to the work submitted to Young Writers Project in perpetuity and throughout the world;
These rights include, but are not limited to: the right to publish or license others to publish the work in full, in part, in summarized, altered, or excerpted versions, and with updates, at any time in hard copy, on the internet, via television or radio broadcast, in hard-copy or electronic reprints, in hard-copy or electronic bulletins or anthologies, or in computer-accessed databases, information retrieval systems or other archives, including on CD or DVD, or in or using any other media existing now or to be devised hereafter, all with no payment to the author;
Young Writers Project may edit the work to conform with its size, format, style, or other requirements. You also agree to cooperate with YWP in verifying the work, responding to questions about the work and in responding to any complaints, claims or litigation that may arise regarding the work.
You are not an employee of Young Writers Project.
Further, you warrant that, to the best of your knowledge:
The author/creator of the work being submitted is the sole creator of the work, that the work is original, free of plagiarism and not previously published elsewhere in whole or in part;
The rights to the work have not previously assigned, transferred, encumbered or conveyed such rights; and
Reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the work does not defame, libel, slander, violate rights of privacy or infringe the copyright, proprietary rights or any other rights of any third party.
In turn, Young Writers Project, Inc., automatically assigns back to the author, creator of work posted here, the full COMMERCIAL rights to the work(s) in perpetuity, meaning the author/creator can reuse, republish, sell, assign rights to others for purposes of publication or any potential use free of any obligation to Young Writers Project, Inc., including, but not limited to, notification, acknowledgment, credit or recompense to Young Writers Project, Inc. If, for any reason, the author, creator of work posted here, needs the full copyrights assigned back to them, this can be done by directly contacting YWP.
You may, at any time, contact YWP Executive Director Susan Reid, either by phone (802) 324-9538 or e-mail, sreid@youngwritersproject.org, regarding your account, the website and this agreement.