New York Chapter of the National Writers Union  (UAW Local 1981)

 YOU CAN'T EAT A BYLINE

from Amanda Melpolder

Organizer for a living wage for online journalists

When Huffington Post sells out to AOL for $315 million while refusing to pay for the quality journalism that helped build the site, the National Writers Union organizes. Today we are launching our new website, www.PayTheWriter.org, as the first step in our campaign to establish a pay scale for online journalists and writers - starting with the Huffington Post.

To read more, click here...

Here's some background: In the fall of 2008, Huffington Post's campaign coverage, called OffTheBus, drew 93 million unique visitors to the site in the last 30 days of the campaign. During that time an editor of OffTheBus talked NWU member John Dinges into giving the Huffington Post a story he was investigating about John McCain's secret visit to dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1985. His piece received over 200,000 visits and was picked up on blogs and news services all over the world. "I asked for payment from HuffPo, as I always do, but the editor said HuffPo was not paying freelancers, although they were trying to get that changed, and expected that in the near future HuffPo would introduce a policy to start paying writers like me who write for a living."

In March, the NWU lent its support to the Huffington Post boycott led by the Newspaper Guild and Visual Art Source. We continue to ask our members not to provide unpaid content to The Huffington Post and not to post HuffPo links.

Our campaign goal is to get AOL/Huffington Post to set a standard for online journalism we can then take to other online content providers to get writers paid a living wage. We will also seek some justice for the writers who helped to create that $315 million value.

First things first: we need to hear from you, if you have written for the Huffington Post without payment. If you or someone you know has a story to share, email me at amanda@nwu.org. Everyone can go to our website www.PayTheWriter.org to sign up for the campaign updates. Help us tell AOL/Huffngton Post that our writing is worth far more than a byline.

NATIONAL WRITERS UNION DIGITAL BILL OF RIGHTS

 Because a free society cannot long exist without a thriving community of independent writers free to write and publish the truth as they perceive it, the National Writers Union proclaims the following rights for all writers:

Freelance writers published in the United States possess exclusive ownership of their work according to the historic principle of copyright established in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This ownership allows the author to license or sell various copyrights (digital, geographic, foreign language, and others). The one exception is when an author signs a work-for-hire contract, and in return for just compensation, the publisher owns the work, not the writer.

When writers publish their work on the Internet, their copyright protection and exclusive ownership of the content remain. Electronic reproduction and distribution of the document, or of substantial portions of it, do not abrogate the writer’s title to the
intellectual property. Content that can be read on the Web without a fee is still protected by copyright.

When Digital Publishers (DPs) electronically copy or publish all or substantial portions of a work on the Internet for gain without the author’s permission, in violation of Constitutional law, writers have the right to demand redress for the violation of their copyright and theft of their intellectual property. 

When writers discover that a DP has illegally reproduced all or substantial portions of their work from any source, they have the right to demand immediate cessation of the infringement, removal of the content from display or sale within 48 hours, and/or either payment of damages or a negotiated fee for past and/or continued use based on current fee standards.
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<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->The NWU shall champion the principle that writers’ greatest assets are ownership of our intellectual and artistic property, a constitutionally protected right. DPs are legally bound to request the writer's permission to distribute or license his or her work.

DPs must contact the writer or an authorized collective licensing organization and sign a contract with the rights' holder before they begin to distribute or sell that work.Rather than offer vague, open-ended contracts, DP contracts must delineate which specific rights are bought for a specific amount of money or other compensation and licensed for a specific length of time.

Writers who find that DPs have copied or distributed substantial portions of their work in any media without permission, compensation, or attribution in order to generate income may demand that the DP remove the work from their files and cease reproduction of it. 

If a DP sells or uses a work to generate income from advertising, subscriptions, downloads, or any other means of commercial gain, writers must receive a fair and just share of the revenues generated from their work.  If the DP does not provide the writer a fair price and a fair share of revenues generated from the work, or if the DP steals the writer’s work outright, the writer may seek redress through civil or criminal penalties. The right of writers to limit the duration of licenses must be respected.

At the end of the license period, all rights revert to the writer. The right of writers to offer nonexclusive rights shall be respected. DPs must sign a new contract with the writer for any set of additional rights. Furthermore, each set of rights requires an additional fair fee.<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
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Noncommercial DPs must give the writer the courtesy of requesting permission to reprint all or substantial portions of a document. Reproduction of the material must contain full attribution to the writer as well as a link to the writer's website or email address, if the writer so wishes. Government agencies and courts must vigorously enforce existing copyright laws and treaties signed by the United States that uphold writers’ rights.

If libraries or educational institutions purchase subscriptions to digital journals, a portion of the subscription fee collected by the DP shall be shared with the writers. Libraries must be able to permanently purchase annual subscriptions to digital journals for a single, reasonable fee rather than having to annually repurchase access to past-year volumes.

Writers may continue to quote or otherwise use small portions of copyrighted material for creative purposes as long as full attribution is provided in accordance with the traditional fair use principle.
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• Campaign for vigorous enforcement of copyright laws,

• Advocate for new copyright legislation needed to codify writers' rights in the digital era. That would include requiring permission, attribution, and payment for commercial use of writers' work; enacting penalties for infringement that would escalate from monetary fines to imprisonment; and setting up a monitoring and enforcement mechanism to ensure protection for writers’ rights.

• Advocate for an agreement with periodical publishers whereby the copyright for the writer's individual work must be automatically registered at the same time that the issue of a magazine, journal, or other published entity containing the work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

• Promote the creation of an ASCAP-type royalty system for freelance writers and publishers. Writers need a fair, transparent system for tracking usage/resale of writers’ digital work for the purpose of copyright monitoring and collection of royalties and fees.

• Educate writers and the general public of the need to honor the rights of writers.  If democracy is to prevail, writers cannot continue to contribute to the nation’s cultural growth and inform its citizenry if they are unable to make a living from their own creations.

• Publicize the illegal and unjust profits made by DPs who reprint copyrighted material without permission or fair compensation

• Champion the cause of writers who seek help in enforcing these rights.

• Reach out to, work with, and make coalitions with our natural allies such as librarians, researchers, and information consumers. 

Accepted by the National Writers Union National Executive Board, February, 2008

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DEFEND and PROTECT WRITERS' CREATIVE WORK

Once upon a time, writers and artists sold the publisher the “First North American Rights” to a property. The writers/artists held on to all other residual rights, which gave them the opportunity to sell reprints, foreign rights, broadcast rights, etc., to other publishers. Writers were able to make a living because they controlled the rights to their works.

 
Today, Google, Amazon, Times Warner and the rest of the Big Media publishers are forcing freelance writers and artists to sell “all rights.” The publishers are claiming the right to sell all versions of the work in any format and any language… forever, with no additional payment to the creator! This massive theft of intellectual property has reduced the income of many writers to poverty levels.

 
Make no mistake: every time you “Google” an individual or a creative work and view it on the internet, the creative person who provided the material receives nothing. What’s more, if the viewer clicks on a link to purchase a book, movie, song, art work, or any other created work, the internet provider receives a whopping referral fee, but, again, the creator of the material receives nothing.

 
It’s time to fight back for the rights of writers and artists to control their work and receive reasonable compensation for reproducing it in any form.

• Learn what your historical rights are as a writer and artist
• Join the National Writers Union campaign and fight for a living wage for creative artists.

THE PLAN

The NWU is organizing 1-2 members from each chapter to form the Copyright Piracy Steering Committee. The committee will:

1. Write pamphlets and flyers to explain the issues.
2. Send speakers to the locals to train the members on the issues.
3. Distribute videos that cover the copyright piracy debate via our Web site to promote the issue.
4. Organize a forum about Copyright Piracy in NYC in January 2009.The forum will offer representatives from the NWU and other writers and artists organizations.
   
5. Hold demonstrations at publishers’ offices over these rights.