I've seen similar clauses on "competing publications" for a brief period after first-publication, and have occasionally wondered just what those publications would be, myself. Not that it's ever been, or is likely to be, an issue for me.
For a short story? Usually what's bought is first NA serial rights (sometime world), and non-exlusive full reprint rights (if the whole magazine or anthology is reprinted, but they can't in theory sell it wholesale). Since they don't own all the rights forever, non-competition here makes sense to me -- they usually want those first serial rights to give them a window of, say, a year before you can then anthologize the story or sell it elsewhere. So this one makes sense to me.
In practice, I know people who have agreed to this and then gotten permission to publish the short story before that period had expired (and in one or two cases, due to publishing delays, before the story which was in theory bought as first NA saw print in the original publication, but I digress).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-09-21 08:35 pm (UTC)For a short story? Usually what's bought is first NA serial rights (sometime world), and non-exlusive full reprint rights (if the whole magazine or anthology is reprinted, but they can't in theory sell it wholesale). Since they don't own all the rights forever, non-competition here makes sense to me -- they usually want those first serial rights to give them a window of, say, a year before you can then anthologize the story or sell it elsewhere. So this one makes sense to me.
In practice, I know people who have agreed to this and then gotten permission to publish the short story before that period had expired (and in one or two cases, due to publishing delays, before the story which was in theory bought as first NA saw print in the original publication, but I digress).