Effective Date: January 1st, 2025
Last Updated: September 22, 2026
These Editorial Guidelines explain the standards SKENE applies to editorial submissions, contributor materials, attribution, corrections, and disputed content. They should be read together with the SKENE Terms & Conditions. Where a legal obligation in the Terms differs from an editorial practice described here, the Terms control.
SKENE retains final editorial discretion over selection, scheduling, presentation, headlines, introductions, metadata, formatting, promotion, corrections, translations, and publication status.
Ordinary editorial participation is voluntary. Paid advertising, sponsored services, advertorial arrangements, and other commercial engagements are handled separately and do not alter the rights-clearance requirements applicable to editorial material.
SKENE may edit interviews and contributor text for clarity, punctuation, consistency, accessibility, and publication formatting. Contributors ordinarily review editorially revised interviews and SKENE-prepared translations before publication.
SKENE may decline or remove material containing potentially unlawful or defamatory allegations, unresolved rights issues, or content inconsistent with SKENE’s editorial standards.
SKENE may correct factual errors, add an editor’s note, temporarily deactivate disputed material, or remove material when warranted, including when a credible third-party complaint is received.
Contributors should submit approximately the number and type of images requested by the applicable editorial form. Submitted images should come from the contributor’s personal or professional archive and should not be generic stock photography.
Contributors should not submit material if they are uncertain whether they possess sufficient authority to authorize SKENE’s publication.
SKENE does not obtain permissions, negotiate licenses, or conduct rights clearance on behalf of contributors.
Material displaying third-party watermarks, agency marks, copyright notices, licensing restrictions, or other indications of third-party control may be rejected. This includes material bearing marks associated with stock libraries or rights-management agencies even where the contributor’s own work is depicted.
If a contributor already possesses written authorization permitting publication by an independent third-party digital publication, the contributor may provide that documentation for review. Documentation does not guarantee acceptance.
SKENE requires an affirmative Rights & Permissions Certification for submitted Materials.
The certification should state substantially:
“I certify that I own or control sufficient rights, licenses, and permissions to submit these materials to SKENE and authorize their publication, promotion, and archival use in accordance with SKENE’s Terms & Conditions. I further certify that I have obtained any permissions necessary for SKENE’s use of individuals, creative works, and other third-party intellectual property depicted or included in the submitted materials. I understand that I am responsible for the accuracy of this certification and that SKENE does not obtain third-party permissions or conduct rights clearance on my behalf.”
The certification must be affirmative and should not be preselected. SKENE should preserve the accepted certification language or version, submission date, contributor identity, and association with the submitted files as part of its administrative record.
SKENE’s editorial review is not rights clearance.
SKENE credits photographers directly whenever the photographer is known.
Preferred format:
[Editorial caption]. Photo: [Photographer Name].
A production company, theatre, organization, publicist, or other file provider should not ordinarily be substituted for the photographer’s name as the image credit.
“Courtesy of” may identify a supplier but does not necessarily identify photographic authorship or copyright ownership. SKENE therefore does not use courtesy credits as a substitute for a known photographer credit.
Image captions are not comprehensive production credits. SKENE does not undertake to identify every performer, director, designer, choreographer, producer, venue, company, creator, or other person whose contribution or likeness appears in an image.
Appearance of a person, performance, design, artwork, or other creative contribution within a photograph does not automatically create a SKENE image-credit obligation.
A photo credit identifies photographic authorship as editorial information. It does not represent that SKENE has determined copyright ownership, licensing status, or ownership of underlying works.
When requested, image files should use:
[Show or Project Name] – [Photographer Name]
Example:
Romeo and Juliet – John Smith
Contributors should identify the photographer whenever known.
SKENE may feature photographers as artists. Performing-arts photography receives heightened rights review because a photograph may depict productions, performances, designs, choreography, artwork, or other third-party interests.
Photographic authorship alone does not establish that production photography is cleared for independent publication.
Generally acceptable material includes photographs for which the photographer owns or controls the photographic rights and can establish authority for independent publication, such as independently created portraits, documentary work with appropriate permission, rehearsal or process photography with publication rights, the photographer’s own projects, and production photography where the governing agreement permits independent editorial or portfolio publication.
Production photography subject to a contract, commission, credential, accreditation, employment agreement, or other third-party arrangement may require documentation showing that independent editorial publication is permitted.
SKENE generally will not publish production photography where independent publication authority is unclear, including agency or stock-library imagery, watermarked rights-managed material, conflicting rights notices, or material subject to an apparent contractual restriction.
SKENE does not contact productions or organizations to obtain clearance for a photographer’s portfolio.
A photographer PROFILE concerns the photographer’s practice and career. A production photo essay in which the production itself becomes the editorial subject may require separate and heightened review.
Fair use is an independent SKENE editorial determination. Contributors should not submit material they are not authorized to provide on the assumption that SKENE will rely on fair use.
Where SKENE independently determines that criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, or another lawful editorial purpose warrants use of copyrighted material, SKENE may evaluate that use under applicable law. Such decisions are made case by case.
An attribution complaint occurs when a person asserts that their contribution, authorship, or identity should have been credited but does not necessarily allege that the contributor lacked authority to authorize publication.
SKENE may temporarily deactivate disputed material, acknowledge the complaint, and notify the contributor.
SKENE does not automatically add requested credits and does not adjudicate competing attribution claims. The parties may resolve the matter independently and provide SKENE with agreed instructions or documentation.
A rights complaint includes an assertion that the contributor lacked authorization, that another party owns or controls relevant rights, or that publication is otherwise unauthorized.
SKENE should promptly restrict or remove the disputed material from public view while the matter is assessed. SKENE should preserve a nonpublic copy and relevant submission, certification, publication, complaint, and removal records where reasonably appropriate.
SKENE may notify the contributor and permit the underlying parties to resolve their rights dispute independently. SKENE retains final editorial discretion concerning restoration.
Removal is a neutral procedural measure and does not constitute an admission of infringement, acknowledgment of ownership, or determination that a claimant is correct.
Formal copyright notices and legal claims should be directed to legal@skene.pub.
SKENE may investigate credible factual complaints concerning published text. Depending on the circumstances, SKENE may correct the publication, add an editor’s note, temporarily remove disputed allegations, request documentation, or remove material.
Contributor approval of an interview does not prevent SKENE from correcting an independently verified factual error or responding to a credible legal or ethical concern after publication.
Contributors may request modification or withdrawal of their interview or submitted media before or after publication.
SKENE will discontinue future public display on systems reasonably within its control within a reasonable processing period. SKENE may retain nonpublic records where reasonably necessary for legal compliance, dispute resolution, security, editorial documentation, or recordkeeping.
Withdrawal cannot guarantee deletion of screenshots, quotations, caches, search results, archives, reposts, or other copies independently controlled by third parties.
Publication on SKENE makes editorial material publicly accessible. Public access does not transfer copyright or make contributor Materials public domain.
SKENE does not authorize independent third parties to misquote, alter, remove attribution from, commercially exploit, or otherwise misuse contributor Materials. SKENE cannot control independent third-party copying, quotation, indexing, caching, scraping, archiving, artificial-intelligence processing, or republication.
SKENE does not undertake enforcement of a contributor’s rights against independent third parties.
SKENE may resize, crop, compress, convert file formats, and adapt media for responsive web display. Social and promotional graphics may add titles, captions, logos, or other layout elements.
SKENE does not materially alter the visual content of contributor artwork or photography without additional authorization.
Contributor media may be resurfaced in SKENE-controlled editorial contexts connected with the contributor or their participation, including social posts, newsletters, homepage features, Top 9 selections, recurring editorial features, and archival promotion.
Use of contributor imagery for a broader SKENE media kit or institutional brand campaign beyond ordinary promotion of the contributor’s feature requires separate authorization.
Contributor media is not supplied to advertisers or unrelated partners as standalone material.
When appropriate, SKENE may embed YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, social-media, or other third-party hosted media rather than download and rehost it. Availability of an embed depends on the hosting service and rights holder.
SKENE may use automated or AI-assisted tools for limited publishing functions such as translation, transcription, accessibility, and SEO metadata. Editorial interviews, artist photographs, and contributor creative works are not treated as AI-generated merely because such tools support administrative or publishing functions.
SKENE does not authorize contributor Materials to be supplied by SKENE for training general-purpose AI models.
The ordinary contributor workflow is for adults age 18 or older. Individuals age 16 or 17 require a separate process and parent or legal guardian authorization acceptable to SKENE. Individuals under 16 should not use the ordinary contributor submission workflow.
Rights claims, copyright complaints, and legal notices: legal@skene.pub
Routine editorial and procedural questions: admin@skene.pub
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