** TELEMEDIA WANTS YOUR COPYRIGHT **
Telemedia Communications Inc., publishers of many of Canada's top paying
and largest circulation periodicals, is introducing a new contract that
requires writers to surrender their copyright to the publisher. Telemedia
will then be free to re-package and market the work of writers in any way
they choose without either acquiring permission for the usage or paying any
extra fees.
The Periodical Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) is urging writers and
writers' organizations to contact Telemedia and/or the editors and
publishers of the corporation's publications to condemn this new unfair,
punitive, and exploitive contract.
Here are the facts on this contract (all quoted passages following are
taken directly from "Agreement For Articles" Telemedia Communications
Inc.):
(1) It requires a writer to assign "all of his rights, titles and interests
throughout the world in and to the copyright in the Work."
(2) Telemedia will grant the author the right to sell the work to other
media, but the author must "arrange for Telemedia to receive appropriate
credit as the Copyright's owner or first publisher of the Work and the
Author shall obtain the prior written consent of Telemedia." After two
years the copyright will revert to the author. Telemedia is not required to
grant such permission, there is no provision that permission must be
granted within a set time period, and, of course, you may well be competing
with Telemedia over who gets to sell the rights to the article to that same
market.
(3) Telemedia requires the author to grant "Telemedia the right to use his
name, biography and photograph or any other representation of him in
connection with the publication or other reproduction of the Work and in
all related promotion and advertising." In short, you could end up
endorsing products or services that you would not voluntarily support. Once
again, you will be paid nothing for this "privilege", either.
(4) Telemedia requires that the author grant "to Telemedia the right to
edit, adapt, condense, or otherwise modify and translate the Work, the
right to produce or reproduce part of the Work or any derivative work based
thereon and the right to title it." Traditional practices of Telemedia
magazines that allowed writers to have final approval of copy before it
went to print, and that allowed them to have a say in other usages of their
writing, are now being replaced. The writer no longer has control over what
goes out under his/her byline.
(5) Telemedia is offering to pay 5% of the original fee if it publishes the
Work in a Telemedia newsletter, 10% of original fee if it publishes the
Work in a book or subsequent magazine, and 2% of revenues derived from
electronic rights sales. The fees for newsletter, book, and subsequent
magazine usages are ridiculously low--far below the usual rates of 50% of
original fee for such traditional secondary rights. But you don't own the
copyright if you sign this contract so you have no right to negotiate. The
2% offer would be laughable if it weren't such an insult to writers.
(6) "Telemedia shall have the right to use the Work or any part of the Work
for advertisements and promotions for Telemedia and/or Telemedia's products
or services, without additional payment." Pretty self-explanatory. Again
the author gets nothing and Telemedia gets freedom to do as it will with
your writing.
(7) Telemedia requires the author to surrender a copy of "all of his notes
and research material concerning the Work...to Telemedia upon acceptance of
the Work." This defies all journalistic tradition and could seriously
jeopardize the credibility and confidences of the author in regard to
his/her relationship with the sources used in the preparation of the
article. There is also the serious question of whether Telemedia then
considers itself the owner of the research material and might use it to
compile, produce, and publish other stories without remuneration to the
writer.
These are but a few of the major concerns PWAC has identified within the
Telemedia contract.
It is not just writers who are threatened by this contract. Telemedia is in
the process of developing and initiating the use of similar contracts that
will cover photography, recipes, craftwork, and illustrations. All these
contracts are scheduled to be in force no later than January 1996,
according to Telemedia Vice President, Editorial Services Paul Sullivan.
The "Agreement for Articles" will be used company-wide "as soon as
administrative support is in place," Sullivan says, "and is already being
used by some of our editors in their negotiations with writers."
Sullivan has told PWAC that editors will not be permitted to vary the
contract in order to address individual writers' concerns. It's going to be
a take-it-or-leave-it situation. Telemedia owns and publishes the following
publications:
Canadian Living Canada Select Homes
Coup de Pouce Extra Elle Quebec
Equinox Harrowsmith Country Life
Healthwatch Images
Madame au Foyer Teleromans
TV Guide TV Plus
Vancouver Magazine Western Living
We urge all writer groups and writers to immediately contact the editors of
these magazines and urge them to call on Telemedia to withdraw this
contract which is unworthy of a company that traditionally has had an
excellent reputation for its dealings with writers. We also urge you to
contact the following people at Telemedia Communications Inc.
Chairman of the Board: Phillippe de Gaspe Beaubien
President & CEO: R. James McCoubrey
Executive Vice President: F. Robert Hewett
Senior Vice President: Robert A. Murray
Group Vice President: Greg MacNeil
Vice President, Editorial Services: Paul Sullivan
All of these people can be contacted by writing: Telemedia Communications
Inc., 25 Sheppard Avenue West, Suite 100, North York, Ontario, Canada M2N
6S7. Phone: (416) 733-7600. Fax: (416) 218-3633. Paul Sullivan can also be
reached by electronic mail at: [log in to unmask]
Express your condemnation and resistance to the Telemedia contract today.
For further information contact:
Periodical Writers Association of Canada (PWAC)
54 Wolseley Street, 2nd Floor
Toronto, ON Canada M5T 1A5
Telephone: (416) 504-1645. Fax: (416) 703-0059.
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
November, 1995
Periodical Writers Association of Canada
National Office
54 Wolseley Street, Suite 203
Toronto, Ontario
M5T 1A5
(416) 504-1645
Fax: 703-0059
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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