ASJA ACKNOWLEDGES 'LICENSE BY DEFAULT'
In the last 24 hours ASJA issued a statement that we lampooned in this morning's post, "Peanuts Here! Get Your Fresh Roasted Peanuts!" (http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/09/asja-peanuts-here-get-your-fresh.html).
Today ASJA sent that statement out as an email burst to subscribers of its sporadic newsletter Contracts Watch. I am on that list.
The email version of the statement added this passage (capital letters in original):
IF YOU MAKE NO CLAIM OR FAIL TO OPT OUT, YOU WILL FORFEIT NON-EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO YOUR STORIES TO THE DATABASES, WHICH WILL THEN BE ABLE TO SELL THEM FOREVER WITHOUT COMPENSATING YOU.
It's the first acknowledgment by any of the associational plaintiffs that the UnSettlement includes what the objectors, and our attorney Charles Chalmers, have been hammering at as the "License by Default," and which former ASJA officer Anita Bartholomew also cited in her independent objection. (The website statement was similarly amended.)
In a parallel edit, there's a passage, "The more claims you file, the more money will be paid to freelancers, up to $18 million, including fees. Get your share." Between those two sentences was a third that is no longer there: "This is free money." ASJA apparently decided that such a claim wouldn't measure up even to the lax truth-in-advertising standards of our times.
Those of us who care about the future rights landscape for freelancers must applaud this limited, but welcome, disclosure. Now I urge the associations to take the next step and attach some useful value judgments to this provision. The September 12 objection/optout deadline fast approaches.
Today ASJA sent that statement out as an email burst to subscribers of its sporadic newsletter Contracts Watch. I am on that list.
The email version of the statement added this passage (capital letters in original):
IF YOU MAKE NO CLAIM OR FAIL TO OPT OUT, YOU WILL FORFEIT NON-EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO YOUR STORIES TO THE DATABASES, WHICH WILL THEN BE ABLE TO SELL THEM FOREVER WITHOUT COMPENSATING YOU.
It's the first acknowledgment by any of the associational plaintiffs that the UnSettlement includes what the objectors, and our attorney Charles Chalmers, have been hammering at as the "License by Default," and which former ASJA officer Anita Bartholomew also cited in her independent objection. (The website statement was similarly amended.)
In a parallel edit, there's a passage, "The more claims you file, the more money will be paid to freelancers, up to $18 million, including fees. Get your share." Between those two sentences was a third that is no longer there: "This is free money." ASJA apparently decided that such a claim wouldn't measure up even to the lax truth-in-advertising standards of our times.
Those of us who care about the future rights landscape for freelancers must applaud this limited, but welcome, disclosure. Now I urge the associations to take the next step and attach some useful value judgments to this provision. The September 12 objection/optout deadline fast approaches.
posted by Irv Muchnick at 3:28 PM
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