| Tuesday, November
25, 2003
It's busy here. I'll get up some mail of
interest, but most of the afternoon is going to be taken up with errands
including going off to buy a 15" Mac in Glendale.
I have a good collection of letters
discussing the tariff/job export/manufacturing situation, but that will
require some comments from me, and I don't have time for that this morning.
Tomorrow perhaps.
The following is an experiment by Francis
Hamit. It is quite long, and if you want to skip over it, click
here, but I thought it interesting:
WHY PUBLISHERS USE FREELANCERS by Francis Hamit
Copyright 2003 by Francis Hamit, All Rights Reserved.
Here's something that most freelance writers don't
know: newspaper and magazine publishers depend upon us not just for diverse
editorial material, but sometimes for the very survival of a publication.
This is often the case in the domain of trade
magazines, where I've spent most of my recent career as a freelance writer.
But don't take my word for it, look at the publisher's trade magazine,
"FOLIO: the Magazine for Magazine Management".
In an article in the January 1, 1992 issue, Peggy
Schmidt and Sean Callahan wrote, "If a staff writer is producing 10 feature
stories a year and you're paying a salary of $30,000 per year plus 40
percent more in benefits and taxes, each story is costing you $4,200. If you
are confident that you can get the same quality of work from freelancers at
half the cost, you may want to cut back in-house staff and reallocate the
money to the freelance budget."
The article goes on to make several other
recommendations including paying a set price per piece rather than by the
word, and paying a little bit more to retain talent. Editors are also
advised to develop regular relationships with knowledgeable freelancers by
giving them regular assignments and that: "You may even save money since you
can often negotiate a lower per-article fee if you can guarantee a writer a
set amount of work."
Other advantages touted to using freelancers include
their specialized knowledge. In an article called "How to Find Freelancers:
A Primer for Editors", published in FOLIO in the April 1, 1998 issue, Marcia
Ringel wrote: "Hundreds of freelance writers and editors are waiting to add
expertise to your publication." And she also says: "Because freelancers keep
abreast of the news, they'll gladly propose article ideas and supply fresh
contacts as story sources. A reliable freelancer can prepare a regular
column or track certain aspects of your field --tasks your staff would do if
they had time." She also points out that using freelancers in distant cities
to cover events saves travel costs.
And adds this tidbit: "What if your budget is zero?
Call a journalism school and ask for a promising student." Publishers
exploit unpaid interns in their offices as well.
Finally she concludes: "As freelancers lighten your
load, you'll wonder how you got along without them."
I've been on the other side of this equation for most
of my career as a journalist. I've had regular contributor or "Contributing
Editor" next to my name on the publication's masthead at several different
publications over the last two decades.
I have hundreds of articles in print, and have often
been praised for being so prolific. My reply is always, "It's called making
a living". When you support yourself as a writer, you end up taking a lot of
work simply to pay your bills. For a number of years I averaged a major
feature article about once a week.
In 1993, two things happened that altered the
relationship between freelance writers and their editors. One was the
introduction of the World Wide Web, with its advanced graphics capability,
as the new medium for communicating printed information. It took a few years
to sort it out, but it is now obvious that the Web is a print rather than a
broadcast medium; one which, because of its digital nature, reduces the cost
of distribution to close to zero, and expands the circulation area of a
publication to the whole world. Over 600 million people in over 100 nations
now access the Web. You can read most of the newspapers in the world online,
from the "New York Times" to the "Malaysia Star".
The second thing that happened was that Jonathan
Tasini, a freelance writer and labor activist who was then the President of
the National Writer's Union, along with several colleagues, sued the "New
York Times" and other publications for reselling their articles on CD-ROM
and through online services. The "New York Times" called this a "revision"
of their original collective work.
In 2001, when the case was appealed to the United
States Supreme Court, the decision went to the freelance writers. Rather
than settle, the "Times" started eliminating freelance articles from its own
database, causing outcries from librarians everywhere.
During the intervening years, most publishers sided
with the "New York Times" and sold electronic rights they did not own -- and
because of a 1981 Federal Court decision called "Quinto Vs. Legal Times of
Washington" these were rights they should have reasonably known they did not
own. That decision, which was about the reprinting of an article originally
published in one newspaper by another, held that the paper reprinting the
article had "a duty to inquire" as to the true ownership of the copyright in
an article, and also held that the original publisher retained no rights to
transfer to anyone else because Quinto was neither a member of the staff nor
had signed a written contract transferring additional rights.
Despite this decision, an identical situation was
allowed to develop by hundreds of publications with articles by thousands of
writers. The publishers signed deals with firms called "aggregators" who
digitized the content of thousands of magazines to create huge databases
with millions of articles. This was additional money in the publishers'
pockets. They get between 30 and 75 percent of the gross.
These databases are searchable and allow a user to
retrieve and print out any one article. This was the basis of the Supreme
Court Decision mentioned above. The "collective work" copyright does not
include contributions by independent contractors. These contributions have
their own copyrights.
The aggregators and their clients, which include major
database providers such as Lexis-Nexis, Factiva, Dialog and Ingenta, relying
upon contractual assurances by the original publishers, refuse to deal with
freelancers directly on copyright infringement and point them back to the
publishers who originally supplied the articles. Yes, they did have a "duty
to inquire", but they were also entitled to rely upon the written assurances
of the publishers and take them in good faith.
This traffic in what are essentially stolen goods
gives the original publishers a new, undisclosed profit center, much like
reprints made of these same articles for marketing and publicity purposes
and sold without the author/ copyright owner's knowledge. (That's also an
infringement of the copyright.)
Because publishers have been careful to conceal these
arrangements even from their own staff editors, most writers whose articles
are being infringed don't even know it.
Not so long ago there was a "second rights" market
where a freelance writer could take an article originally sold to one
publication and sell it to another, usually in a distant non- competing
market. The Web changed all of that. Not only did publications start putting
up electronic editions of their issues for the world to see, but some
started selling them to the aggregators who resold them directly to the
market for library databases and, indirectly, through the database firms to
the extensive commercial market for article reprints. Originally such
articles were delivered by FAX or courier service, but the Web made them
instantly accessible online to those willing to pay for subscriptions or by
the "pay per view" method to read and/or copy them. Because electronic
publication now often happens simultaneously with print publication, the
second rights market has been pretty much destroyed.
Undoubtedly, almost all of the millions of articles
provided this way are properly and legally cleared as to copyright ownership
and the rights transferred. But consider the following not so hypothetical
situation: A freelance writer, working on an oral agreement like the one in
the Quinto case, writes and is paid for an article in a particular
publication. All the publication has purchased, unless there is a written
agreement to the contrary, is the right to publish that article once, in
print. If it sells reprints to someone, that is an infringement. If it puts
it up on its own web site, that is infringement. If it sells it to an
aggregator who resells it to all the other electronic markets, that is many
infringements.
Web-based databases for libraries were introduced in
1997 and they've flown under the radar of public consciousness so far. Since
they allow any library patron not just to read, but to print out and to
e-mail an article to third parties without any real restriction, the impact
upon the freelancers's potential to resell the articles themselves is
devastating. The aggregators have not only defined the market, they've
marketed and distributed in a way that crowds out all other competition.
While the amount derived for a single copy of an article can range from a
fraction of a cent to a few dollars, the total revenues are in the billions
of dollars. It's a very large, and global, business.
Full-time freelancers are rare. It's a very tough way
to make a living, and bargaining power is eroded by the large number of
people who do it part-time for too little money, or do it for free just to
see their name on a byline or to advance a cause or another business
enterprise. Only the fact that competent, reliable freelancers save
publications substantial amounts of money on staffing makes it a viable
business. Given that, you would think that publishers would want to nurture
these relationships by sharing the revenues from these secondary markets or,
alternatively, by buying all rights at a fair price that reflects the value
of this aftermarket.
Until the Tasini decision forced the issue, they did
neither. Now they are very insistent on "all rights" or "work for hire"
contracts, but offer no additional compensation, much less a portion of the
additional revenues. This is both greedy and short- sighted.
Freelancers are essentially small business people who
don't yet enjoy collective bargaining rights. If they try to agree on a
common minimum price for their work, they are threatened with anti- trust
suits for price fixing. Each has to determine the worth of their work on
their own. Added to that is the fact that the publishers have concealed the
revenues they make from the resale of the freelancers work, especially when
they have no rights to it.
And they conceal that fact from the aggregators and
database firms as well. They claim ownership of the copyright of everything
in an issue of a publication in the contract, and are so credited in the
databases. Nowhere will you find credit given where credit is due where
freelance work is concerned. This is a violation of another section of the
Copyright Act: Section 1202, which does not deal with infringement per se,
but with "copyright management information".
This is the part of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act of 1998 that no one apparently bothers to read. It makes it a violation
to deliberately alter titles, bylines, or to change or conceal true
ownership of a copyright. The aggregators and their clients may be innocent
in this, the publishers who provided the article, two years after the Tasini
decision became the law of the land, certainly are not!
If a publisher who does not own rights beyond first
print publication exploits them anyway, either directly or by selling them
to a third party, then that is theft. If that publisher, to facilitate that
sale, also claims to own rights which are retained by the freelancer, then
that is fraud.
I could go on with the ins and out of this. At this
point, having researched this on my own behalf for about two years, I could
probably write a book on this, but I think you get the idea. If you wrote
freelance articles for anyone on an oral first serial print rights basis,
then you need to check online to see if your work is infringed and if the
copyright ownership is properly credited. Start at your local library and
see which publications are on those marvelous electronic databases. That's
in the part called "title lists".
Then, since this is not legal advice, and I'm not a
lawyer, you need to see one who specializes in intellectual property law if
you think you may have a cause of action. Especially if it's a "credit where
credit is due issue".
Section 1202 seems to, along with the other parts of
that chapter, stand apart from the rest of the Copyright Act. It neither
refers to them nor is referred to by them. That means, if your "copyright
management information" is distorted by anyone, damages under Section 1203
(the civil penalties portion of the Act) may well include statutory damages
up to $25,000 per violation regardless of when you actually register your
copyrights.
I have my own cases going forward on these matters.
Legal fees and costs are very expensive -- something else which publishers
rely upon to keep us freelancers at bay. If you have found this article
helpful and wish to make a donation, please send it to:
Francis Hamit Legal Fund P.O. Box 5499 Frazier Park,
CA 93222-5499
I thank you in advance.
This article may be freely reproduced for any
interested party as long as it is done so in its entirety, without
alteration and with the copyright management information preserved as
stated. Publications and online services wishing to re-publish this article
should contact the author for terms.
=====================
Dr Pournelle,
Who is the empire?
http://www.femail.co.uk/pages/standard/
article.html?in_article_id=202304&in_page_id=2
Read this and worry,
Jim Mangles
Indeed
===============================
Jerry,
Well, after you mentioned the Prince was on sale over
at Amazon, I ordered a copy. They initially told me it would be 3 weeks
before they could ship it, which was fine, I'm in no hurry (busy working my
way through Footfall :-).
Then imagine my surprise when I get an email 2 days
later saying that it'd been shipped. Well, a book arrived, but it was NOT
the right book - it was "Prince - a novel" by IB Michael. Needless to say,
this got sent back.
Then, a week ago, I finally receive confirmation that
the book had shipped. Well, AGAIN, it was the wrong book, the *same* wrong
book in fact... So, back to the web site, print out the return label, slap
it in place and send it back. I asked for a refund this time, as they
obviously can't seem to understand that IB Michael != Jerry Pournelle.
Another outsourced operation to someone who can't read English?
I'll try again after Christmas.
Pete Flugstad Iowa City
Sigh. For those confused, The Prince is the name of
the big book collecting all my Falkenberg stories and novels with a couple
of new scenes never before published. It comes from Baen and it can be
ordered directly from Baen Books as I understand it.
============================
Hi Jerry,
I just thought that you'd want to know that Norton
System Works 2004 now requires activation. And, according to this article,
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1395948,00.asp , it can
break and become unfixable. I guess that they didn't learn anything from the
Intuit debacle.
Keep up the good work!
Brian Gannon
I will have more on this in the column.
Subject: Eugene Kleiner, RIP
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/11/25/obit.kleiner.ap/index.html
Roland Dobbins
=============================
On Ipod batteries
Jerry, I always look at service plans
as "insurance" against loss. Thus the cost of the plan is the premium.
As I see it, the $59 charged to extend the warranty by one year, is a
premium of $59 against a worst-case loss of about $400. That's somewhat
steep as insurance goes, don't you think? I think it compares to paying a
yearly premium of over $4,000 for collision coverage on your $30,000
automobile.
Regards,
Bas
and
Dr. Pournelle,
An alternative to Apple's
outrageous price for replacing a 2nd generation iPod's battery can be
found at:
Laptops for Less
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
The part costs $49 and has a shelf-life of 10 years
according to an email they sent me. This is less than one year of "Applecare"
and it's highly unlikely that your factory battery will fail in that first
year anyway. The replacement instructions on the site look pretty straight
forward for anyone who's not utterly clumsy ;)
So you can buy a $49 part and store it away until
needed, or pay multiple years of Applecare fees knowing that the battery
*will* fail eventually. Info on the above site and other good iPod stuff can
be had at:
iPodlounge
http://www.ipodlounge.com/
Regards,
-------------------------------------------------------- David P. Huff david@dhuff.org
|
| "Giving money and power to government is like
giving whiskey and car keys | to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke
=======================
Dr. Pournelle,
I tried the link you have www.ipodsdirtysecret.com and
got the same as you, download
Quicktime for "free". I know for a fact I have Quicktime installed. What I
noticed that was checked on the Quicktime download page was "quicktime AND
itunes". I use MusicMatch and there is a known conflict between it an itunes.
By accident I typed ipodsdirtysecret.com (no www.) into the IE address bar
and the movie played with no quicktime download required. A trick perhaps to
get you to install itunes.
David A. Kickbusch Vice President Educational
Achievement Services, Inc. (
But, but, but--- Oh, could it be?
AND NOTE:
Hi Jerry,
I just wanted to extend a caution to the previous
comments about
www.laptopsforless.com and iPod batteries. The company sells
cloned products that do not necessarily meet manufacturer standards. I
purchased a Thinkpad battery from them and discovered not only that it
lacked both the circuit necessary to pass power through to the secondary
battery and the power management chip, but that it grew much hotter during
recharging than the original IBM battery.
I don't know if the ipod battery falls into the same
category or not - when the time comes, I'll probably spend the $99 on
Apple's battery service. (
http://www.info.apple.com/support/applecare_products/service/ipod_service.html
).
Cheers,
Doug
P.S. Macauley's History is often available on eBay - I
just picked up a complete set from the 1890's for around $50. Between that
and Burning City I'm set for the holiday season reading. Any thoughts about
making an autographed edition of Burning Tower available from your website
when it's published?
I will consider the autographed copy option when
the time comes. Thanks,
Dr Pournelle,
Debris of Empire
Horse feathers, more likely. Helicopters have been
taking off and landing in Buckingham Palace gardens for years without any
fuss.
The Daily Mirror's well known anti-Bush, anti-Blair,
anti-Iraq-invasion position is obvious and of long standing.
And like so much of the low-end press in the UK, it
always feels free to make facts up if the appropriate kind don't arrive any
other way.
Jim Mangles
Well, well...
================================
Subject: Dell Closes Overseas Call Centers
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1395692,00.asp
He would not discuss the nature of the
dissatisfaction, but some U.S. customers have complained that Indian support
operators are difficult to communicate with because of thick accents and
scripted responses.
Rich
But then
Subject: 54% of Dell employees are not in the US
Mr. Pournelle,
http://washingtontimes.com/business/20031124-085927-4908r.htm
Scott
ps- very interested in your experience with the Mac
laptop and OSX. I want a new computer, but am scared off by Apple's QC
stumble on this model. Thanks for all you do.
I just bought the Mac. I cannot say I was happy
with the service from the store, but the machine looks and feels nice. We
will see. I expect I will love it.
===================================
Jerry,
Yet another example of how much I learn here, then
hear later.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031124-091843-3971r.htm
NICOSIA, Cyprus The Turkish army has warned
the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the country's
police force has to be "cleaned up" to prevent further terrorist violence.
... The Turkish army considers itself to be the guardian of the Turkish
republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 after the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire. The last major military intervention against the
political system took place in 1980, after years of terror that paralyzed
much of the country's life. In 1997, the military pressured into resignation
a pro-Islamic government headed by Necmettin Erbakan. ...
Scott Anderson
I try...
The costs of Empire:
Subject: More Kipling
Kipling exhorted America to become an empire like
Britain, but he fully showed the costs of empire.
Of course, we're too politically correct to even
mention "The White Man's Burden" today, or to suggest that the native
cultures of Iraq, Somalia, or the Balkans are any less civilized than the
West. But it's worth linking again.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html
Steve Setzer
The harbors ye may not enter...
I have one book out whose title is "Bind Your Sons
To Exile".
=======================
NAMES for the New Powerbook:
mail on this subject goes here
Subject: name for Powerbook
Sally (as in Sally Fowler from The Mote in God's Eye)
smart beautiful powerful seen rough times "carved from
ice by the finest sculptor that ever lived"
Yeah, it works :-)
Steve S.
Roland has suggested Hecate. Peter
Glaskowsky objects, and suggests Aphrodite or Diana. My first inclination
is to Ariadne, a sometimes petulant but very useful princess (my midget
ocean racing sailboat was named Ariadne back when I did such things). We
will see.
Jerry,
Name your new Powerbook Julian after your
god-daughter. She's had her own iMac for about a year now and she loves it.
All I have to do is give her a CD in a case and she can do everything else.
That's why Meg and I love Macs. Oh, and the Apple Store at the Northridge
Mall is much better than the one in Glendale. They're not rocket scientists,
but the are competent.
Sincerely, Matthew Miller QA Lead
Hah. A fascinating suggestion. Good to
hear from you!
Jerry :
A name for the new Mac laptop? Why MacDuck, of course.
After all, it came with a large bill, quacks a sad mallardy, has a tale to
be told, and will be a Webbed feat. It remains to be seen just how effective
this will be at amassing wealth and lucre like its cousin, Scrooge McD.
And given how Macs and PCs have converged in the way
they work, it's another question of trying to call one thing another name,
no matter how much each camp wants to assert how incredibly different they
are from the other. It sounds like a... looks like a... flies like a...
... MacDuck. It has something of a ring about it !
John P.
I don't dislike it that much. Yet,
although this business of trying to join my usual domain is driving me mad.
But I expect to like this machine when we are done.
Jerry,
May I suggest - Freya - In Norse mythology, Freya is a
goddess of love and fertility, and the most beautiful and propitious of the
goddesses. Somehow, the frigid beauty of the Norse Lands seems a fitting
analogy for the gleaming aluminum armor of the Powerbook!
Cheers....Richard
Not bad.
g
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