Thursday, May 19, 2005

Introducing a New Feature: The 'Miss Lonelyhearts' Column

As reported yesterday in "'Information' Website Goes Haywire" (http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/05/information-website-goes-haywire_18.html), the query page of the associational plaintiffs' informational website about the class action preliminary settlement, http://www.freelancerights.com, seems to have lost its marbles, or at least its graphical features. This happened right after I posted the following question (not that I'm suggesting causality!):

"This page has been accumulating new questions but there appear to have been no new answers posted for weeks. Please advise us on when we can expect answers to these questions."

As a public service, the FREELANCE RIGHTS blog now brings you a new feature, called "Miss Lonelyhearts," named after the great novella by my literary idol, Nathanael West. (I love West's prose so much I named my second son "Nathanael," with "a-e-l" instead of "i-e-l." Later I discovered that my Nathanael had been born on the 50th anniversary of the death of Nathanael West. Not that I'm trying to put too much pressure on the kid. But I digress.)

From now until eternity, once a week, or whenever your humble blogger feels like it, "Miss Lonelyhearts" will pluck a question out of the forlorn slush pile at the freelancerights.com website and, in the great tradition of advice columns, attempt to answer it expertly.

First up:

"From 1996 through 2001, I wrote hundreds of articles for Copley Press, which is a signatory to settlement. In 2001, Copley sold the newspapers I wrote for to Hollinger, which is NOT. What is my situation? Sincerely, Desperate-to-Get-Paid." (OK, so I made up the signature. Remember, I'm a Nathanael West wannabe. But all questions are guaranteed to be real and reproduced from that "other" website.)

Dear Desperate: Good question! As it so happens, the definition of "released parties" in the preliminary settlement includes "past, present, and future parents, predecessors, subsidiaries, affiliates, and divisions, and all of their respective officers, directors, owners, partners, governors, employees, agents, nominees, successors, assigns, legal representatives and licensees."

Next question?

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