Comments on: Breaking News: Court Rules Against Freelancer Protections

By: Tom Colvin

Tom Colvin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:13:29 +0000

Writers Digest editor Maria Schneider in her blog The Writer’s Perspective wrote yesterday about the copyright decision, with some useful detail and a couple of additional links. She points out that it costs $45 per copyright. Multiply that by every article we write? Articles that might not earn much more than $45 in the first place? This ruling may be very serious indeed for freelancers! You can find her post at:

http://www.writersdigest.com/writersperspective/Is Copyright Now Necessary .aspx

By: Tom Colvin

Tom Colvin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:16:29 +0000

I finally found another posting about this decision at respected CNET:

http://www.news.com/Court-voids-deal-to-pay-freelancers-for-work-sent-to-Web/2100-1030_3-6220850.html
And here’s some history from earlier on in the case:

http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

I have absolutely no idea how this ruling will impact Canadian writers, nor even where it goes from here for US freelancers.

In the process, I’ve just realized that my Comments Box is not “url friendly.” Does anyone know a Word Press comment plug-in that works better than this, preferably allowing a link, or at the very least wrapping the url text?

Tom

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:18:54 +0000

I am wondering how this will affect Canadian writer’s.
I will have to look into this and our laws, but will this prove to be the same issue for Canadian copyrights?

By: Freelance Writing Jobs - The Internet’s #1 Freelance Writer Community » Blog Archive » Weekend Link Love for December 1st, 2007

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:40:53 +0000

[...] Breaking News: Court Rules Against Freelance Protection at Becoming a Writer Seriously. [...]

By: Tom Colvin

Tom Colvin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:49:26 +0000

Jeremy, sorry about the broken link. I’ve revised my post accordingly — with a note of irony.

Tom

By: Jeanne Dininni

Jeanne Dininni — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:21:44 +0000

Tom,

The worst part about this is that, for years, writers have been lulled into a false sense of security by being told that their works were copyrighted the moment they created them–regardless of whether or not they decided to register them with the U.S. Copyright Office. Looks as if we’re now beginning to see the limitations of such “natural” copyrights!

Thanks for this important info!
Jeanne

By: Jeremy Osborne

Jeremy Osborne — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:48:00 +0000

Hi Tom,

It appears the link to the article is broken. I tried to find it in a search but couldn’t. I wanted to read the article myself and then read the court report (if it was linked) before making any decisions about this.

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