The National Writers Union (NWU) and the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) filed comments October 17 with the US Copyright Office in response to pressure writers face in choosing between privacy and copyright protection. The Copyright Office recently proposed regulations by which writers—for a minimum $130 fee—could restrict some public access to the […]
My IP Got Pirated: How I Took It Down
You wrote a book and it’s been published, either traditionally or by you. Now you can focus on promoting it. But if you own the copyright, you have another task in this digital age: Protecting your work on the Internet. Recently, I did a Google search for my book, Writing Well in the 21st Century: […]
NWU, Allies Educate Copyright Office on E-books
In our latest formal submission to the US Copyright Office on August 18th, the NWU and two other writers’ organizations provided an overview of the “new normal” for writers seeking to earn a living in the digital age. We also discussed how copyright policies designed for publisher-centric business models and old media serve to deprive […]
Self-Publishing? Think Self-Protection
Most of us, I hope, wouldn’t think of signing a contract with Random House or St. Martin’s Press without having the contract reviewed by either an NWU contract advisor or a lawyer. Yet authors who sign up for self-publishing often don’t even get a hard copy of their contracts. First, as we’ve discussed before, many […]
What’s Mine is Mine!
In 1976 I made a half hour video about the artist Norman Lewis, a personal friend. Nineteen years later I sold a few copies at a very nominal cost of the copyrighted film to a few people who were also friends of Norman Lewis for their personal use. Twenty years after that when visiting a […]
Beware of Lone Wolves
When members come to us with grievances for nonpayment against reputable publishers or corporate clients, we can usually help them get their money. Yet more and more of our grievances are against lone wolves: scam artists who hide, change identities, or just plain ignore writers’ claims. A lot of them run blogs, which they start […]
SCOTUS Upholds Google Scanning for-Profit
In a very bad decision for authors, the US Supreme Court decided not to hear the Authors Guild (AG) appeal of the Google Book Scanning Project, terminating on April 15 a decade-long case that has struck at the heart of the publishing industry. This decision comes after two separate appeals courts ruled that Google did […]
TAKE AUTHORS SURVEY, BOOST NWU
What is the easiest way to support your union? Completing an Authors Coalition survey. Each response can generate the same income for the NWU as gaining one new member. In 2015, your participation helped us accrue nearly $160,000 in non-title specific royalty payments. This amount is directly linked to the number of completed surveys. However, […]
SOME THEFT IS LEGAL
Members have told us that they’ve pitched an idea for an article, and a similar article turned up under someone else’s name. They say they wrote books about teenage vampires or nerdy supervillains, and then watched other people make millions from their plot lines. They think that copyright law should protect them. In most cases, […]
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
OUR DIGITAL OUTREACH PROJECT In 2013, we identified improving internal and external digital communication as our greatest strategic need, and followed up by launching a 2-year project to upgrade our website and database. In that spirit, I’m proposing a Digital Outreach Project that will be conducted mainly through Twitter and Facebook, helping us to draw […]
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