'Class' Counsel Exposed (Day 3); UnSettlement Held Hostage (Day 48)

Since we've adopted a new component of our mock-Koppel day count, let's explain the new algorithm and review the old one.

On Tuesday morning we filed with the court new evidence of collusion between the plaintiffs' counsel and American Society of Journalists and Authors honcho Jim Morrison to provide guidance -- available only to participants of an ASJA online forum and not to the whole class they purport to represent -- on how to work around the UnSettlement's rancid "License by Default" provision. See:

CLASS COUNSEL HELPED FORMER ASJA PRESIDENT CRAFT SPECIAL 'LICENSE BY DEFAULT' ADVICE FOR PRIVATE ASJA FORUM
http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/09/class-counsel-helped-former-asja.html

Documents Showing Class Counsel-ASJA Complicity
http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/09/documents-showing-class-counsel-asja.html

So it's Day 3 of that scandal.

Meanwhile, on July 28 Judge George B. Daniels ordered all three associational plaintiffs -- Authors Guild and National Writers Union, as well as ASJA -- to post prominently the notice of an amendment to the UnSettlement. The Guild has complied, the other two have not. So it's Day 48 of that run-of-the-mill clerical error, which already has prevented untold numbers of class members from being able to object or opt out by the September 12 deadline that just passed, and which promises to prevent an untold number from filing claims and/or submitting denial-of-future-rights paperwork to the settlement administrator by the September 30 deadline.

In the Orwellian world of the UnSettlement, there will be a September 27 fairness hearing on the parties' final presentation in support of the terms, which call for a maximum of $18 million, including the lawyers' fees, and the default waiving by all authors everywhere, forever and ever, of their future rights -- even though Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act and a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in 2001 clearly say otherwise.

Oh, and by the way: The settlement parties' final papers haven't been filed yet. But not to worry, they assure the freelance community. We're going to love them!