Contracts Watch 11/1/95

ASJA CONTRACTS WATCH CW951101 Issued November 1, 1995

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Pandemonium on the Thames: A planned copyright grab by EMAP BUSINESS PUBLISHING, a leading UK house of business and computer magazines and professional journals, may be in for rough sledding. Internal memos just leaked by the UK's National Union of Journalists detail the publisher's plan to force freelance contributors to give up "copyright and all other rights throughout the world ... in all media." Editors were summoned to an October 26 "seminar" to chat about the move with management and receive instruction in the fine points of coercing writers. Instead, according to a report from the NUJ, virtually every editor in attendance spoke against the copyright grab, and just an hour into what was scheduled to be a three-to-four-hour session, the meeting "closed in an uproar with 30-40 editors shouting for their questions to be answered" as senior management beat a hasty retreat.

At the NEW YORK TIMES, editors are perhaps somewhat less demonstrative but clearly unhappy-bordering-on-angry over how they're being forced to treat freelancers; a staff meeting on the plan to take copyright and all rights from outside writers was described by a participant as "raucous." Since then, disgruntled editors at several sections have been dealing with certain reluctant writers by ignoring the management directive and allowing them to write without a signed contract. Management, for its part, is stepping up its strategy of Divide and Conquer. Originally, the Magazine, Book Review and op ed section were declared exempt from the rights-grab order; now, the editors of Travel and Arts & Leisure reportedly have been told they may spare important contributors. The form of dispensation for the favored few varies. Most of those who write for Book Review, for instance, are left very nearly as bad off and insulted as the mass of Times freelancers; they're expected to let the publisher sell and resell their property via syndication and electronic means forever, without being cut in. Other writers get a pretty clean, almost bare-bones contract. At the Times, one size does not fit all.

Meanwhile, more and more publications seem to be doing it right. SKI Magazine (of TIMES MIRROR MAGAZINES), has begun a World Wide Web venture called SkiNet, consisting of articles from the magazine and daily reports from race circuits and elsewhere in the ski world. Writers happily report that Ski has agreed to pay an extra fee equal to 10 percent of the article price for the right to include a work in the new venture. And an editor confirms that the magazine will take a fair approach by limiting the license to SkiNet only, for just one skiing season. "If we want to do something else, like a CD-ROM," says an editor, "we'll come back to you." Visits to the Web site are already being tracked per article; as traffic and revenue increase, editors say, the magazine will raise the fee for SkiNet or start paying a per-hit royalty.

Freelancers' paperwork from GENERAL MEDIA (which publishes PENTHOUSE, LONGEVITY and others) arrives with a cover letter warning: "Please do not make changes to our contract." Not everyone listens and behaves. Some Penthouse writers report making contract improvements, including changes to the warranty and indemnity, addition of author consultation on editing, and earmarking of 10 percent of the fee for electronic rights. The editor of a sister General Media magazine, FORUM, is more generous with contract fixes. One recent deal reported by a Forum freelancer eliminates some of the extra rights requested and calls for negotiated payments for all others, including electronic.

Add CHILD (a GRUNER + JAHR title) to the list of magazines that try to get writers to accept a work-made-for-hire contract, then retreat and mail "the right contract" on request. The second-try contract needs fine-tuning; as with other G + J titles (such as McCALL'S, FAMILY CIRCLE and YM), writers who stand firm with CHILD can make substantive changes in several clauses. Hardest for G + J to give up, apparently, is the claim for free electronic rights. The boilerplate asks for a three-year license, and editors routinely try to insist on a "compromise" of one year for free. Writers who won't back down, however, are able to cancel the clause entirely. Absent proper compensation for the rights, that's just what they should do.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, the national newspaper of Canada, has released a new freelance agreement demanding permanent nonexclusive world rights for all media. The Periodical Writers Association of Canada has blasted the rights grab with a blunt statement accusing the publisher of "bullying," calling on writers to refuse, and urging those who have signed without thinking to rescind their OKs. John Mason, PWAC's national president, quotes with irony a line from Junius on the Globe masthead, which urges that loyal subjects "neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." Mason suggests writers protest to executive editor Earle Gill, 444 Front Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 2S9, fax 416-585-5070. ASJA president Janice Hopkins Tanne has joined PWAC's effort by writing to Gill: "Writers have no problem with granting you the extra rights beyond first use that you may need, but not for free."

Yet another writer has told Contracts Watch of turning down a request from a READER'S DIGEST editor to submit story ideas. After reading the Digest's contract demands, the writer responded: "As a professional writer, I simply cannot sign a contract that demands `all rights' on print and electronic media as well as `the right of first refusal' on all other rights." Other RD magazines--AMERICAN HEALTH, NEW CHOICES and TRAVEL HOLIDAY--do not ask all rights. And on electronic rights, they offer, for example, either a share of income or a flat fee for restricted e-rights.

And a writer passes on this comment from a READER'S DIGEST BOOKS editor trying to line up a large number of contributors to a group effort: "Every time I talk to a writer, all he wants to talk about is the contract."

[The American Society of Journalists and Authors is the national
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