Supremes Hear Case of Publisher Piracy

tuiterwyk writes "According to this article on CNN.com, the US Supreme court is considering whether print publishers who have paid a free-lance writer for an article or story are able to include that work in their on-line or CD versions without the permission of the original author or without being required to pay additional compensation. The impact on on-line searches and newspaper sites could be dramatic." See the New York Times story as well. Publishers such as AOL/Time Warner have no problem pirating the work of freelance writers to sell for a profit - when it's their profit. Note: I have not been able to find any article by any major publisher that describes what the publishers are doing (distributing copyrighted works without permission, for money) as "piracy", please post a comment with a link if you know of one.

Comments

The NYT

[Uruk]

There was an interesting piece on Marketplace last night (radio show on NPR) where they were talking about just this.

It seems that the New York Times has an interesting position here - while they have regularly posted rants in the editorial column against napster and what they refer to as the "looting" of other people's intellectual property, they're firmly in favor of being able to use freelance material without paying for it again. The New York Times has a high percentage of freelance stuff in its pages, and it would be quite a financial blow if they were to have to pay writers for the second go around.

The point is moot in some cases, since many freelance writers sign contracts before they turn their stuff over that says that the company can do whatever they want with it in perpetuity. Of course that's a shit deal, but if you're starving and you've got something to sell (like a freelance article) you take whatever terms will put money in your pocket.

Whether or not that's a fair application of the law is of course an entirely different debate.

Fair use!

[mjh]

Oh please, oh please, oh please, let the claim that it's fair use. Please, I just wanna see AOL Time Warner claiming that this is fair use of something that they already paid for. PLEASE have them open up that pandora's box.

Don't just read the NY Times version

[MrAtoz]

Ironic that this story includes a link to the NY Times' coverage, since they are the ones being sued in the first place. I myself would not turn to them for information on this subject ...

For balance, here's the link to the National Writers Union's page about the Supreme Court appeal, including background, the actual briefs filed, etc. (did you know that Ken Burns submitted an amicus brief on the side of the publishers? or that the American Library Association and the US Copyright Office sided with the writers?)

There's also a nice piece on "The Hypocrisy of the NY Times" that explains how the Times (and other publishers) have been trying since 1995 to make their theft legal through "all rights" or "work-for-hire" contracts (which were not the norm before). Here's an excerpt:

Until now, I only mentioned The Times' outright thievery. But, even before it was caught (you wonder what it really knew), the Times' did what every legal miscreant does-unleash its lawyers. In 1995, The Times issued a "work-for-hire" agreement, which decreed that all articles written by its freelancers would be "'works made for hire' and that, as such, The New York Times shall own all rights, including copyright, in your articles. As works made for hire, your articles may be reused by The New York Times with no extra payment made to you."

The Times wasn't alone. In the past five years, there has been a growing movement by media companies to demand from writers an ever-expanding menu of rights for no additional compensation. Virtually all contracts now demand a broad license to use a first-time print publication work in a wide array of electronic formats. The most onerous of the new contracts have been "all-rights" and "work-for-hire" contracts. There is a subtle legal distinction between those two versions: an "all-rights" contract implicitly argues that the writer owned the copyright when the work was created and is now licensing its entire use away, while under "work-for hire," the employer, from a legal standpoint, is considered the original creator of the work.

However, from an economic standpoint, the difference is effectively irrelevant. All-rights and work-for-hire contracts take away our right to decide how our work will be used, our right to make approve editorial changes and make sure our work remains as intact as it was when we typed the last period and, yes, the right to a fair return for what we create. Indeed, while the 1976 Copyright Act, in theory, protects individual authors, it is being obliterated by the sacrosanct written contract.

Having done freelance work, I know both sides

[aidoneus]

Unrelated comment first - You're looking for comments from a major publisher where they admit to pirating the works of freelancers? That would be like getting Shawn Fanning to admit that Napster exists primarily to pirate copyrighted music. Not going to happen...

Anyway, I've done some freelance writing in the past few years, and most of the time the contract I've worked from has been a flat, per page payment. If I write 4 pages of publicity material, I get $400. Pretty simple stuff. However, one thing I've seen often is as part of the payment agreement, I've had to agree to surrender my right to future payment for republication in other media. In other words, they pay me the money as a flat, one time deal. After that, I still get credited as the author, but I don't recieve any future payment. It's not something that (at least in my experience) is snuck past the author by a sneaky publisher, it's a part of the deal, and if you don't like it, don't sell them the work.

OTOH, I do get a little annoyed whenever I see something I've written reused, and I never was told. It is an artistic creation of ine, and when it is republished, sometimes resulting in thousands of dollars for the company I feel shafted that I only got a few hundred dollars for my work. But hey, next time I write for them, I bring that up in the price negotiation and usually I get better paid the second time around.

Bottom line, pay attention to what you're signing away in the contract, just like any other legal document (be it an employment contract, and waier, etc.).

-Jason

This Isn't the Same Thing...

[John Murdoch]

Hi!

I've been a freelance writer for years--and I'm surprised that the Supreme Court regards this case as being worth the trouble to even review. Every publisher I've ever dealt with has paid me for "all rights" to an article--whether in the next issue of the magazine, in a reprint they sell to a vendor, or if (fat chance) they turn my article into a movie script. I've had articles reprinted in other languages, reprinted on CD-ROM, and published on websites. All I ever got paid for was the initial article.

Did I get ripped off? No--because that was the bargain. I write 3000 words on a given topic, I get paid a few bucks, and that's that. If the magazine publisher can figure out a way to distribute the article in a different form, and they can make a few extra bucks, that only gives them that much more incentive to ask me to write the next article.

Is this hypocrisy by the big media companies?
For the most part, I don't think so. When I sell an article I'm selling all rights to it--so the publisher can reproduce that content "in any form or by any means" (quote from actual contract) without paying me any additional compensation.

So what's the big deal? Frankly, I'd be positively floored if any publisher didn't essentially have the same contract--they buy all rights. I've written for half a dozen programming magazines, for "popular" magazines, and for a major children's magazine--every single one of them bought all rights. If my name were John Grisham or Stephen King my agent might be able to negotiate a better deal--but I'd be really, really surprised if better than 1% of freelance articles are bought on anything other than "all rights" terms.

Is this hypocrisy?
No--this isn't. When I buy a DVD or a music CD, I'm not buying all rights--I'm just buying the right to play the content on the DVD or CD. The media companies could (yeah, right) offer "any media" versions of the same content at a different price. Then if you wanted to convert the content to MPEG or some other format you could.

On the other hand...
What is blatantly hypocritical is the coming fight in Hollywood over residuals. Every time a TV episode, or a movie, or a commercial airs, the writers and the performers get paid a fee. For many actors residuals become a lifelong source of income--minor players in the 1970s mega-hit "M*A*S*H" continue to earn substantial income from reruns. The studios cry poor--they want to end residuals and pay on an "all rights" or "work-for-hire" basis. In other words, they want to buy creative content on an "all rights" basis; they want to sell that same creative content on a per-use basis. (They will not, for instance, sell "all rights" to, say, ER to your local TV station.) That's hypocrisy.

I work for a small publishing company...

[stilwebm]

I work for a small publishing company, and we specialize in custom publishing. For most of our long-term clients, we have online versions of the custom publications. Most of the writing is done by freelance writers. The editors will usually specify up-front that they may put the writing online for the online version of the publication. For the most part, the witers agree, since it gets them more publicity. There are a few who charge a token amount, much less than the fee for the original piece, to have their work posted online. It works similarly for the free-lance photography we use to accompany the stories. Most photographers have a clause in their contract to allow for unlimited online use for a small fee, and a few allow it free. Occaisionally a photographer will try to charge twice the original amount if we ask for the rights to use their work online, and we usually refuse and find a substition.

Re:"Work for Hire"

[ichimunki]

I think you may have this a little mixed up. Without a contract, the author of a "work for hire" retains ownership of the rights to that work. Unless the creater of a work is an employee of a company performing his or her duties of employement, a contract is normally required to deprive the creative party from their ownership over the creation. An example we often see in our lives is the professional portrait photographer, whose work we are not able to have copied without a release from the photographer-- even though it is a picture of ourselves. (Of course the photographer probably can't use the photo for much else than selling you copies either, unless you signed a model release form-- but that's a privacy issue, not a copyright issue). For more information see, US Copyright Office FAQ especially #35. There is a link in the FAQ to a PDF called "Circular 9" which goes in depth about work for hire.

Dear Slashdot,

[grammar nazi]

You do not have permission to publish this comment on your website.

Sincerely
grammar nazi