Contracts, contracts, contracts... normal service resumed shortly

[Ewan McIntosh]

If you follow the main 4iP blog you'll have seen that the team is entering a few weeks of contracting: just getting a bunch of approved ideas through the final hurdle as quickly as we can.
For the past two months I've been in the frustrating position of meeting literally hundreds of companies and individuals from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Belfast, Newcastle and Middlesbrough, working up some great ideas and kicking back on some less great ones (and most of those within 28 days), having ideas approved (and others hitting deadends), with a good number more or less commissioned.

The last hurdle, getting the deals fixed and contracts out, is proving to be a longer process than envisaged.

Often the companies we're working with haven't been commissioned to do work before, and often haven't had the experience of being walked through a large contract, full of standard but legally jargonised language. Yes, it's a pain, but a necessary pain to protect those companies and their ideas.

Needless to say, in the next few weeks in Scotland and Northern Ireland we'll hopefully see two iPhone games/apps about drinking and reading (but not together), one social platform for the arts, one mobile/Facebook app beta to discover your local area's delights, and some Google-y stuff move from "approved" to "commissioned".

Over this time I'll be working more on balance on this process with our partners, including those at Scottish Screen and Scottish Enterprise and Northern Ireland Screen, to get those contracts signed and delivered. When I'm not bolted to a lawyer's side, or working through to page 27, I'll continue to work with those companies I've already been developing ideas with.

Next on the list are a dozen or so ideas which are ready to put forward to the rest of our team for approval and, by the end of the Easter hols, we should be working up around 25 more ideas which currently seem promising, but need some more tlc spent on them.

There will be calls to action in the meantime, from both SICamp and The Edinburgh Festivals (some delay in this one as we got the essential technical information together), and you are encouraged to get your ideas in for those. Just be prepared for a little less feedback than we've managed these past four months, in the knowledge that in a few weeks, normal (or better-than-normal) service will be resumed - because we're looking at how we can speed that first bit up, too.

Pic: Good Clause, Bad Clause

[Darryl Collins]

LOL. That's why lawyers drive cars and young producers take the bus!

[Stuart Cosgrove]

Sure is Darryl - although I think there is a personal/company culture dynamic nonetheless. Once I want to do something I move quickly to contracts: deals, houses, rare records, even bets on the football. Some people like to gnaw away at the options and sometimes expend more energy on the fine detail of the contract than on the delivery of the commision. Different strokes for different folks. I know people especially in the film scene who spend more on lawyers than they earn in fees. Bizarre. I remember cancelling a project when the film-maker's brother - a lawyer - was taking up more time than the project was worth, to her, to C4 and to the creative economy. It was get a grip time.

[Darryl Collins]

Stuart, I'd tend to be in the latter category, particularly with online stuff - you often don't know where the real longterm value is until months or years down the line and if you have been sloppy in the early agreements you can easily shoot yourself in the foot.

I am a big fan of the Y Combinator startup seed funding model. Paul Graham of Y Combinator recently wrote an article on angel funding and the need to keep things simple and standard. He linked to Y Combinator's standard Series AA agreement package that attempts to put in place a set of documents that tries to minimise the legal costs, particularly for startups and smaller projects.

Having been through multiple fundraisings over the I thought it was a great idea! :-)

[Stuart Cosgrove]

Yes it would but like all of these things Maurice the first wave of projects are all very different with varying balance of partners, platforms, business plans etc. My guess it that across time a standard devlopment contract will emerge and a more 'famliar' long form contract will evolve too. We have always aspired to a click through agreement but that will no doubt arrive along with the famous 'paperless' office.

[Maurice Smith]

Would it be possible to produce a simple standard 4IP contract that kept the admin side of it to a minimum? (yes I can hear lawyers scoffing already...)?
I know this will depend on the reach and ambition of both parties but given the nature of the proposals being considered for 4IP, would it be worth trying to establish simple paperwork? Many of the companies concerned are small and/or young, and in no position to spend a lot on legals.

[Stuart Cosgrove]

I know this is grunt work, but its essential. Once the first wave of deals are contracted and something close to a 'familiar' approach emerges everything is for the first time.

Across the years in TV there have been two very different approaches, one is the company that trusts who they are dealing with, wants to sign fast and gets the cash flow. The other approach is to dwell on the contract, pursue almost every negotiable area and therby delay the process. Guess there is no simple answer it comes down to personal/company culture.

In 15 years at C4 I've always found it bizarre that people will absorb substantial legal fees to argue about minutae that has no revenue benefits.