This nondisclosure agreement is entered into upon the participation or signing up in the Writers Reading for Writers members section. This agreement has been created with the intention of preventing unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. The parties agree to enter a confidential relationship with respect to the disclosure of certain proprietary and confidential information.

Confidential information is defined as all information or material that has commercial value or that would disclose any and all projects being reviewed in the wiki group, the author and specific information regarding the content.

Exceptions include:
● If information is made public at the time of disclosure—the author will say so.
● If information if it is inferred by past precedence—"this book is book 2 in a series.”
● If information is made public at no fault of the collaborator in question—the author tweets a paragraph that reveals a plot detail.
● If information is disclosed with prior approval—you ask the author if you can talk about the work in general terms.

By entering into this agreement, you will be obligated to hold and maintain all information in the strictest confidence. You agree to be held legally accountable for violating this agreement.
At the date of release of a final product, you are released from this agreement for that project only.

---

What does the above mean in normal language?

Don't talk about somebody's work publicly. Keep it on wiki page comments or private messages.

Don't tell third parties about what you read here.



Why is this important?
In the simplest terms:

This is important because the information or content in a work is protected by intellectual property laws. If you didn't think of it or create it in some measurable way and don't have the ability to prove ownership, you don't own it.

If you do own it, you can make money off it and it is yours to do so however you wish. Others taking it is against the law--and the Elftown rules.

People (generally speaking) don't appreciate spoilers. It makes you an asshole to say "I read the final draft of so and so's second book and I can tell you that this character dies in a heroic sacrifice." Don't do this.

It's not yours to distribute or show off if you didn't make it. -The details of this agreement is partly why publishing companies don't say "the spy character in this novel series dies in book 5 and book 6 is told by a different character" before the books are released. Because you may ruin sales, attention for the IP that the owner and distributors would have gotten.

Lastly: a person can take legal action against you for your violation of a non-disclosure agreement.

Back to:
Writers Reading for Writers