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ASJA CONTRACTS WATCH 42 (vol 4, #3) CW970227 February 27, 1997
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News of PARENTING, CHILD, PARENTS, HEALTH, FAMILY CIRCLE, VILLAGE VOICE, NEW YORK TIMES, DATAMATION, TOTALNEWS.COM, SOUNDPRINT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, more...
PARENTING, which had earned praise from writers for a fairly decent contract that editors were free to make even better, has moved from San Francisco to New York, near parent Time Inc.'s headquarters. It isn't good for a grown child to live too close to home.
A nearly all-new Parenting editorial staff has been handed a revised contract for freelancers. In it, what was one of the fairest warranty clauses in the industry has become unreasonably tough. Worse, the electronic rights clause has been unacceptably broadened. The old agreement offered a small fee for broad e-rights for a limited time; editors were free to narrow the license considerably. The new version wants nearly all e-rights forever for the same small fee, and editors say they're no longer free to fix things.
If so, best bet now for Parenting freelancers would be a switch to CHILD and PARENTS, where Gruner + Jahr's overreaching contract can be made perfectly acceptable with some pen strokes.
Back in San Francisco, Parenting's sister magazine, HEALTH, continues to use the old contract.
Like Child and Parents, FAMILY CIRCLE (also from Gruner + Jahr) continues to be reasonable about cleaning up its contract on request. Another writer reports that an editor pleasantly agreed to the ASJA-recommended changes in FC's standard terms. A fairer initial offer would save editors' and writers' time and avoid the appearance that the publisher is playing Find the Fool.
The VILLAGE VOICE, in its president's eyes, is the freelancer's friend. Writing to the New York Times (Feb. 22) in reply to a Feb. 19 letter critical of the Voice's new rights policy, David Schneiderman misrepresents the newspaper's contract by insisting it asks "only" a month's exclusivity. After that, he crows, freelancers "will be free to do whatever they please with their work." Like a well-coached witness, he conveniently omits the rest of the story.
Those freelancers will be competing with the Voice. Under the terms demanded, after the exclusivity period the newspaper locks onto the right to reuse and sublicense articles--on paper and electronically--forever. For certain print reuses, some payment is offered; others the Voice wants for free, and for perpetual electronic reuse it offers not a sou.
That's hardly a fair deal, and freelancers know it. Word is that precious few have given in. Says a Voice source: "Those who've signed are not names anyone would recognize."
And if the Voice isn't telling the whole story, what of the NEW YORK TIMES? According to the freelance writer whose note in the Times prompted the Voice's defense attempt, his letter as submitted contained a paragraph noting that the Times, too, "tries to squeeze writers like lemons." The paragraph was cut.
DATAMATION has joined the ranks of magazines that have paid up when caught using a freelancer's article on the World Wide Web without permission. The Cahners-owned magazine for information technology professionals originally published the piece last summer and promptly posted it on its Web site; the writer didn't find out until last month, when prompting from ASJA sent him in search of possible illicit uses of his work. When he pointed out that he had changed the magazine's standard all rights clause to first North American, the publisher quickly agreed to pay for its seven months of unauthorized online use. Settlement: an amount equal to half the original fee.
A Canadian freelance writer had to work a little harder to coax a make-good payment from the Canadian Institute of Financial Planning, which he caught reprinting an article of his in its course materials. The piece had appeared under a first Canadian serial rights contract in a magazine that died a short time later. The writer chose to pursue the matter with the institute, arguing, "You may have been an unknowing infringer, but you profited from using stolen goods." "But they gave us permission," the institute insisted. "They sold you an invalid license," countered the writer (who happens also to be a lawyer). After six months, three letters and two phone calls, the writer reports, the institute paid $2000 (Canadian).
"I made only $700 for the piece originally," the writer comments. "I probably would have taken $200 if they had responded to me politely at first."
Publishers who want to reuse freelancers' property for their own benefit are not happy when they're on the receiving end. The latest new-tech flap pits a group of major news media players against a Website called TOTALNEWS.COM, which has been "framing" news reports from other Web pages on its site. In TotalNews, with a click, computer users view outside content in a window on the screen. The simultaneous presence of the host's logo and ads, which compete with ads from the original site, alarms the publishers.
According to affected media companies, TotalNews "misappropriates" copyrighted material. This week, in New York, a gang led by CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post sued TotalNews for trademark and copyright infringement.
Eighty-five freelance radio producers and writers have ended a year-long boycott of the SOUNDPRINT documentary series with an agreement that calls for negotiated royalties for new-media and some other reuses of their works after a royalty-free grace period. Under the agreement, SoundPrint, which packages and distributes programs to public radio stations, will track revenues from online and other uses of independents' works and will start paying royalties by the last day of 1998 or when its gross from all new-media distributions exceeds $890,000, whichever comes first. Royalties would also be paid on transcript and cassette sales after the first 100 copies in either medium.
The deal, negotiated by the Producers Advocacy Group, is similar to that reached last spring with NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO. NPR and SoundPrint both had tried to claim broad ownership of freelancers' works. NPR's grace period expires at the end of this year.
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A complete, searchable archive of ASJA Contracts Watch is available on the World Wide Web. Find it--with other valuable information and tips on freelance contracts, electronic rights and copyright--at the Web address below.
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Received on Thu Feb 27 1997 - 18:47:31 GMT
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