Globe settles freelancers’ lawsuit; don’t expect dollars to flow
May 5, 2009 – 10:30 amCTVglobemedia Inc., which owns the Globe and Mail (Canada’s National Newspaper), Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd., and The Gale Group Inc. have agreed to pay $11-million to settle a class action lawsuit from freelance writers and other contributors who claimed they were not properly compensated for the electronic reproduction of their work.
The suit was launched by author Heather Robertson 13 years ago and now thousands of freelancers, whose work appeared on electronic databases after 1979, could share in the settlement.
The Supreme Court of Canada, in a 2006 ruling, said reproductions that are faithful to the original publication – such as the entire pages that appear on a CD-ROM – do not qualify for extra payments. However, the Supreme Court said work that was resold on databases in a piecemeal text-only form was not within publishers’ reprint rights.
Robertson, 67, said that the settlement was “fair and reasonable”.
While the publishers have agreed to pay $11 million for past wrongs, freelancers should not expect the cash to flow for any work they have created over the last five years or more because publishes quickly figured out a work around after Robertson launched the class action suite.
After smacking themselves on their pointy heads for being so f***ing stupid, publishers simply created take-it-or-leave-it all-rights-grabbing contracts that pay freelancers one rate for all rights (current and future, including rights yet to be devised). Some publishers, like Canwest (owner of Global TV, the National Post and a sting of other newspapers) and even Canada’s publicly-funded broadcaster, the CBC, insidiously include copyright in their all-rights-grabbing contracts. That mean freelance do not have the right to republish their own work on their blogs, let alone sell second rights to any other publications or websites.
Freelancers may have won the e-rights battle with the Robertson suit, and good for her for pursuing the fight. However, we long ago lost the e-rights war.
6 Responses to “Globe settles freelancers’ lawsuit; don’t expect dollars to flow”
Paul, you are wrong about the CBC. I am looking at a contract I just signed for a radio piece, and the first sentence of the licensing article reads: “The Freelance Contributor holds copyright in the Contribution.” The same sentence appears in every contract I have signed with them.
By Philip Moscovitch on May 5, 2009
I’ll split the difference with you – I am partially wrong, which makes me partially right, about the CBC. Contracts I’ve signed for CBC.ca have included a copyright clause, as in CBC owns the copyright. And I’ve found my work for CBC on other sites, as in CBC sold the work (or gave the work away) to other sites. But I am glad to hear not all jobs for CBC involve giving up copyright.
By Paul Lima on May 5, 2009
You’re right. They have many different platforms, all, I guess, with different standards.
By Philip Moscovitch on May 5, 2009
I’d like to follow your blog. Can you tell me how to do that?
By Suzanne Boles on May 10, 2009
Just figured out how to follow it. Cheers, Suzanne
By Suzanne Boles on May 10, 2009
If you go to http://paullima.com/blog/?feed=rss2 you should be able to subscribe to the RSS feed. I confess, I don’t know much about RSS, but using RSS is how you can subscribe to the blog and get updates. Also, I send out a short Yahoo e-newsletter once or twice a month with headlines from recent posts and a link to the blog. To subscribe to the e-newsletter, send a blank email to pl-enewsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Or you can bookmark it and visit once a week!
By Paul Lima on May 10, 2009