Enforcing our rights to our web content shouldn’t be this hard

Today the National Writers Union (NWU) was joined by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) in comments filed with the U.S. Copyright Office on a proposed rule for “Group Registration of Updates to a News Website”. In its current rulemaking, the Copyright Office — after consulting news […]

Creators call for action on AI copyright exceptions

An exceptionally diverse coalition of creative workers including the National Writers Union (NWU) and other writers, illustrators, photographers, graphic artists, digital media workers, journalists, novelists, playwrights, composers, and songwriters today issued a joint call for action to redress the damage being done by copying of our creative work, without our permission and without compensation, to […]

NWU Testifies at Hearing on Generative AI

The NWU was invited to testify at the first of a series of listening sessions on the implications of generative artificial intelligence on April 19, 2023. This wass the first step in a lengthy public consultation process by the U.S. Copyright Office, which is hosting these events. The April 19 session focused on “literary works,” […]

Writers and “Generative AI”

How will “generative artificial intelligence” affect writers and other media workers? To ask the question in this way almost seems to imply that we are passive objects  of forces unleashed by venture capitalists and Internet platforms. But as a union, we don’t accept a role of passive victimhood. Our goal is to use the power […]

NWU stands up for writers at IFRRO annual meeting

The NWU’s Edward Hasbrouck represented both the NWU and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), of which the NWU is an affiliate, at the annual meeting of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) held from October 24-27, 2022, in Brussels, Belgium. Participation in IFRRO has been an important part of the NWU’s work […]

Authors Object to the Internet Archive’s Book Piracy

Reaffirming our longstanding objections to the Internet Archive’s distribution of  unauthorized digital copies of books in which our work has been published, the NWU has joined almost two dozen national and international organizations of writers, photographers, and visual artists in a friend of the court brief in opposition to the Internet Archive’s book-scanning and so-called […]

NWU joins Creators Conference, May 11, 2022

The NWU and allied organizations representing people who earn our living as creators of copyrighted works will take part in a free, online conference on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, “Creators and Their Advocates on How Writers, Photographers, Illustrators, Designers, Dramatists, Songwriters, and Composers Are Being Taken Advantage of — and What We Can Do About […]

Antitrust, Copyright, and Media Workers’ Rights

The NWU recently submitted comments to separate inquires from the U.S. Copyright Office and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Our response highlights the need for a wholistic approach to the economic conditions and rights of workers who are not “employees.” A proposition like this needs to recognize the intersectionality of copyright, labor, and antitrust law […]