UnSettlement's Crack 'Response Team'
You'll recall that a few days ago I sent lead class co-counsel A.J. De Bartolomeo an email -- also posted to the comment page of the settlement website and to this blog (http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/06/comment-at-official-settlement-site.html) -- questioning obvious defects in the system for determining whether an author is a member of the class.
A.J. didn't respond, but Melissa De Bartolomeo (presumably A.J.'s assistant) did. Melissa De Bartolomeo wrote back, in part, "Ms. De Bartolomeo is out of the office until Thursday, but will be picking up emails at the end of the day. Ms. De Bartolomeo, or someone else from the response team will respond to your questions within 24-72 hours."
After the 72 hours lapsed, I followed up with A.J. She then emailed my attorney, Charles Chalmers, to say that she would not communicate directly with me.
What happened at the website in the interim is telling. The claim form section of the site no longer provides what I'd characterized as inadequate tools for evaluating a potential class member’s claims eligibility: willy-nilly links to NewsLibrary (now known as NewsBank, which requires registration), LexisNexis (the LexisNexis By Credit Card service, which requires registration and the supplying of credit card information), Thomson Dialog (which turned out to be just a link to a news release about the expansion of Dialog NewsRoom), and LookSmart (better known as FindArticles to those familiar with a campaign by associational plaintiff National Writers Union to stop this new article delivery service’s ongoing systematic infringement).
The removal of inadequate tools, of course, is commendable. But it's not a good thing that the site now provides no tools at all. At this point authors are simply advised to “determine the number of Subject Works and dates that have appeared in publications, as best you can.”
Huh?
A.J. didn't respond, but Melissa De Bartolomeo (presumably A.J.'s assistant) did. Melissa De Bartolomeo wrote back, in part, "Ms. De Bartolomeo is out of the office until Thursday, but will be picking up emails at the end of the day. Ms. De Bartolomeo, or someone else from the response team will respond to your questions within 24-72 hours."
After the 72 hours lapsed, I followed up with A.J. She then emailed my attorney, Charles Chalmers, to say that she would not communicate directly with me.
What happened at the website in the interim is telling. The claim form section of the site no longer provides what I'd characterized as inadequate tools for evaluating a potential class member’s claims eligibility: willy-nilly links to NewsLibrary (now known as NewsBank, which requires registration), LexisNexis (the LexisNexis By Credit Card service, which requires registration and the supplying of credit card information), Thomson Dialog (which turned out to be just a link to a news release about the expansion of Dialog NewsRoom), and LookSmart (better known as FindArticles to those familiar with a campaign by associational plaintiff National Writers Union to stop this new article delivery service’s ongoing systematic infringement).
The removal of inadequate tools, of course, is commendable. But it's not a good thing that the site now provides no tools at all. At this point authors are simply advised to “determine the number of Subject Works and dates that have appeared in publications, as best you can.”
Huh?
posted by Irv Muchnick at 3:07 PM
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