The Globe fight: The ‘Paine’ of writers
Earlier TomPaine.com caught it from us for merrily publishing Bill Gates Sr.’s arguments for the estate tax–without a reminder that neither father nor son appeared to be opposing copyright extensions, the surest path to a copyright gentry. The commonweal wins some and loses some, eh?
Now, however, to its credit, the Paine site has published a piece on the blatant ripoffs that writers are suffering from the Boston Globe, an offshoot of the New York Times’ congomerate. Alas, the Massachusetts Superior Courts recently ruled in the Globe’s favor. But the freelancers are appealing, and with good reason. Here is what Debra Cash, cofounder of the Boston Freelancers Association, wrote in TomPaine.com:
“The terms of the contract are complex (and we argue, deceptive), but a short summary is that, as a condition for freelancing for the Globe today, writers, photographers and illustrators have to give the newspaper rights to their entire archive of past Globe work. Then the paper can do virtually anything it wants with that past work–resell it to third parties, anthologize it, put the images on T-shirts or posters, you name it. Under the contract, the paper can also do the same thing with every new Globe contribution. The Globe’s right to do these things doesn’t run out until 70 years after the creator dies. And the Globe doesn’t have to pay an extra penny, ever.”
What the useful article doesn’t say is that copyright law is inherently the friend of the rich in ways far beyond the above. Copyright lawyers here in the Washington, DC, area cost in the region of $200 an hour, with the more expensive ones charging as much as $800-$900. Yes, some working-stiff writers will hit it big. But not many. So much for the protection the Founding Father’s intended. A client of a writer can engage in the worst rip-offs, and the author still may have problems collecting his or her due because litigitation is so expensive. It’s happened to me. It’s happened to others. What modern copyright law does do, however, especially with longer copyright terms in effect, is reduce the number of free classics available for future writers to read online. And literary classics will take longer to be available for adaptations by writers without Hollywood-bloated budgets.
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