Democracy School Publishing
Terms and Conditions
Last updated: 17 July 2026.
These terms are versioned; the current version is always the one on this page.
These terms are versioned; the current version is always the one on this page.
The Democracy School publishes books. We are a non-profit -- a gemeinnützige UG registered in Berlin -- and we publish under the CIRCULAR Fair Publishing Standard, the fair-publishing floor we hold and administer, across everything we publish. We meet the Standard in our own publishing before asking it of anyone else. What follows are our terms: the commitments every contributor to a Democracy School publication can rely on, stated openly, as the Standard requires of every publisher who carries its mark. There is one mark and one grade: a publisher either meets this floor or does not carry it.
Our Terms at a Glance
The Standard asks every certified publisher to open its terms with the same block, in the same order, showing its actual values -- so that any two publishers can be read side by side. These are ours.
- Remuneration base: gross income from the work, less documented third-party production and distribution charges at cost (the print-on-demand model). No deduction that is not on the contract's list; nothing the publisher pays itself sits hidden in the arithmetic. The base never changes with sales channel or discount.
- Remuneration model: profit-sharing. Every credited creative contributor to a work -- author, translator, illustrator, editor, designer -- holds a contractual share of what the work earns, from the first copy sold. We pay no advances and no fees: everyone participates by share, so there is never a work on which anyone is paid except the authors. Where a contract ever departs from this, upfront payment must reach every credited creative contributor, the authors first among them.
- Statements: at least every six months, within 60 days of the period's end, showing every income stream -- sales by format, licences, everything -- including streams that earned nothing, every deduction, and your carried balance. You never have to ask.
- Payment: with each statement. Balances under EUR 50 carry forward -- always visible, callable by you at any time (the bank's documented transfer cost comes off an early call-in, nothing more), and paid in full when a contract ends. No reserves are held: print-on-demand has no returns.
- Rights: you keep your copyright and every right not expressly granted. Grants are enumerated, with named territories and languages; new forms of exploitation -- expressly including any AI use -- require a fresh, separate agreement. Grants run for at most ten years; renewal is by fresh, express agreement -- never automatic.
- Exploitation and reversion: rights we take, we use. If, after three full years, a work earns you less than the equivalent of 50 copies a year for two consecutive years, you may take your rights back on three months' notice, free. Subsidiary rights we have not exercised within three years revert by themselves. And because our books are made by several contributors: reversion returns your underlying rights, never the book itself. The published edition -- a product you all made together -- stays available, print-on-demand keeps printing it, and every share keeps flowing, including yours; withdrawing it is a decision all its contributors take together. What your returned rights govern is the future: where your part stands alone you may take it elsewhere; where the work is inseparable, only together with the others. And a finished work is never re-opened under its old contract -- nobody can demand it be reworked; a new version or a new use, if all its makers want one, is a new agreement, freely made.
- Promotional copies: up to 50 copies per work per year for review, press, libraries, and prizes -- they earn no one anything, and they appear on your statement, counted.
- AI: your work is never used to train or develop AI systems without your express, separate, compensated consent -- and if such a licence is ever agreed, at least 75% of training-class income (at least 50% for retrieval-class uses) is yours, on top of everything else, non-recoupable, passed through within 60 days. No AI replaces a contracted human role -- narrator, translator, illustrator, editor -- without the affected person's written consent. You are told of every AI licence touching your work, and nothing machine-written is ever published under your name.
- Character of these protections: unwaivable, and derogable only upward -- a contract with us can give you more than this floor, never less. If a work succeeds out of all proportion to its terms, you may reopen the remuneration conversation, and an independent process decides if we cannot agree. Your name travels with your work on every use. Invoking any of these rights will never be held against you.
How We Publish
We are a small house with a print-on-demand backbone, and our economics are shared economics: a work's documented costs are met, and what remains is distributed among the people who made it, by the shares their contract names. This is not a lesser deal offered apologetically -- proportional participation from the first copy is what the strongest creator organisations ask for, and it is native to how we work. Contracts state every share, every deductible cost, and every commitment above, in writing, before work begins. Contracts are governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Our Two Houses
We publish under two labels -- two perspectives on one floor. Democracy School Press publishes science (natural and social), technology, and the humanities, including history and law. re:frame publishes the arts and culture, with the greater creative licence its practices ask -- a licence of form and method, never of treatment: the floor above is identical under both labels, because it attaches to people, not disciplines. A work finds its label by which perspective serves it, chosen in dialogue -- never by classifying its author. Each house's editorial particulars will be published here as they are settled.
The Standard and CIRCULAR
The CIRCULAR Fair Publishing Standard is held and administered by the Democracy School. It arose from CIRCULAR -- the invitation-only, artist-led cultural network through which our publishing engagements often arise -- and it is built to travel: any publisher may adopt it across their whole catalogue, and publishers participating in CIRCULAR meet it as a condition of taking part. The School may certify a publisher's terms against the Standard; certification is an assessment of terms -- never a veto, never a ranking, and not legal advice. Certified publishers may carry the mark CIRCULAR Fair Publishing. The Standard's full text is published as a signed, versioned instrument on this site, alongside these terms -- and, from the network's launch, on the School's CIRCULAR profile; its defining elements are the floor restated in the block above.
