In response to an inquiry by the U.S. Copyright Office, the NWU has filed comments opposing proposals to legalize copying and use of so-called "orphan works" without the permission of the writers or other creators of those works:

The NWU believes that the so-called "orphan works" problem has been greatly exaggerated. This "problem" has been to a significant degree manufactured as a polemical device, and to a greater degree appropriated and misused to serve commercial interests antithetical to those of writers and other creators. Regardless of the benign intentions of many scholars, academics, and librarians, the (false) perception they promote of an "orphan works crisis" primarily serves Google, other search engines and Web spiders and distributors of digital content, print publishers, and other commercial "partners" and profiteers in copyright-infringing mass digitization and digital distribution schemes. These for-profit companies are the real parties of interest in this inquiry, and these would be the principal potential beneficiaries of a statutory financial windfall from "orphan works" and/or mass digitization legislation – at the expense of the incomes of working writers and other creators....

In addition, the NWU believes that any "orphan works" legislation similar to the bills considered by Congress in 2008, or any legislation or regulation purporting to authorize mass digitization and distribution of digital copies without the permission of the holders of the rights to digital copying of the works being copied, would contravene the intent of the copyright clause of the U.S. Constitution and the letter of the Berne Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaty....  Any "orphan works" scheme, even one that involves genuinely diligent, individualized manual searching for rightsholders, will inevitably conflict with ... normal modes of exploitation by writers of our copyrights, and will therefore violate the Berne Convention.

Following a second round of written "reply" comments (due March 6, 2013), the Copyright Office plans to hold hearings on this issue, in which the NWU expects to particpate, later in 2013.

Read the complete NWU submission to the Copyright Office (PDF)

More on "Orphan Works" and related issues from the NWU Book Division

"Kidnapped" (blog post by NWU member Ursula K. Le Guin, January 21, 2013)

Kidnapped: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Blog on "orphan works"

You know those poor orphans starving in the snow on your doorstep that Google wants to put to work for Corpocracy Inc? Well, the Brits are after them too. Parliament is considering an “enterprise regulatory reform” bill containing extremely permissive provisions concerning “orphan works.”

What is an “orphan work’? The definition is pretty clear: a copyrighted work (most often a book, story, or photograph) for which the “parent” — the author or copyright holder — cannot be located.

Finding a copyright is easy: the Copyright Office has it on file. Finding copyright holders (heirs who don’t know they’re heirs, etc.) can take time. It’s not always quick and easy to identify an orphan as such.

And here’s where the definition is vulnerable to deliberate manipulation and obfuscation. (I like that word, obfuscation — “making dark.”)

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The operative term is cannot be located— which does not mean “hasn’t been found,” or “nobody bothered to look for.”

Increasingly often books are called “orphans” just because nobody is bothering to locate the copyright holder, or even make a copyright search. If stringent requirements for identification aren’t upheld, anyone who wants to exploit the rights to an older work can, after the most cursory search for the copyright holder or no search at all, just declare the book, the story, the photograph “orphaned.”

And if this practice isn’t questioned, they can go ahead without concern for copyright, reproducing and exploiting the so-called “orphan.”

It’s not an orphan at all. It’s been kidnapped.

By now kidnapped works probably far outnumber genuinely orphaned ones. The Google Book Settlement allowed Google to declare books orphaned with little or no pretense of search and then reproduce them busily, steadily, and no doubt profitably. The Internet makes it incredibly easy to do so. The U.S. Copyright Office has generally failed or refused to interfere, leaving the entire onus of proof that the work is protected by copyright to the individual author.

Now the Brits are trying to legalize this injustice — a dangerous precedent for decisions yet to be made in the U.S. And worse yet, if Parliament passes the bill, many American works published on both sides of the Atlantic will be misidentified as “orphaned,” scanned and put online by British libraries and others without the permission of the digital rights holder.

Once that happens, you might as well kiss your copyright goodbye. Your book has not only been kidnapped, but handed over to the pirates. As Parliament lurches along hand in hand with Blind Pugh and Long John Silver, somebody else will be burying your treasure. Arr, arr. Isn’t that funny?

At this point, most of the organized opposition in the U.K. is coming from photographers, photo licensing agencies, distributors of news photographs. This also happened in the U.S. in 2008, when photographers got together and stopped “orphan works” legislation in Congress.

It’s hard to understand why writers, who are just as directly affected, are hard to stir up on this issue. Maybe we’ve had copyright so long that we thought it was genetic, or something?

What’s happening is that the Corpocracy — first Disney, then Google, to be followed by Amazon and the rest — has been working for over ten years now to dismantle copyright in practice and destroy it in principle — and to get government sanction for doing so.

Copyright Office seems to be paralyzed; the Department of Justice is looking away; the present Congress is hardly likely to protect art or artists against corporate greed. It’s up to us, the artists, the photographers, the writers, to defend our rights.

At this point, I don’t know any organization working to co-ordinate us into an effective movement except the National Writers Union. However you feel about unions in general, if you’re a writer of any kind, you might look into this one. It’s small, it’s active, and it’s on our side. Nobody much else is.

— UKL
21 January 2013

Click here for the original blog and additional resources.

Journalists Stand Up in Solidarity with Turkish Jailed Reporters ahead of ODA TV Trial

"The two Turkish journalists who are appearing before the Istanbul Özel Yetkili 16th Specialized Heavy Penal Court in the Oda TV case today [11/16/12] on charges of perverting the course of justice have no case to answer and should be released immediately, according to International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its European group the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)." -continued-

For immediate release: October 9, 2012

American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA.org)

National Writers Union (NWU.org)

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA.org)

Writers Slam Secrecy of Book Publishers' Deal with Google;

Call on Dept. of Justice to Investigate Antitrust Implications

National writers’ organizations representing authors of books in a variety of genres believe a secret deal between Google and major book publishers may encourage Google to digitize, use, and sell copyrighted books illegally. The writers groups ask the Department of Justice to review whether the terms of the secret deal may violate federal antitrust law.

Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced October 4 that they had signed a settlement agreement that means the publishers no longer are litigants in an ongoing suit against Google for copyright violations. Since early 2005, Google has been scanning library books for use in its Google Book Search project. Some 20 million books have been scanned, all without permission.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), the National Writers Union (NWU), and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) all opposed two attempts to settle the suit -- as did the Department of Justice, myriad individual authors, organizations, attorneys general of many states, and even foreign governments. We now stand with the Authors Guild in believing Google violated authors’ copyrights. This new, secret settlement with Google may do writers further damage.

We call on publishers to make the settlement terms public: Which books are included, and how much money is changing hands?

“Writers are partners with publishers in the joint venture of royalty publishing. We are contractually entitled to full disclosure of a deal that affects our books, rights, royalties, and livelihoods,” said ASJA President Minda Zetlin.

We have written to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice today to ask that they re-open their investigation of this case, and review the terms of the settlement for possible violations of federal law.

“Settlement negotiations should not be allowed to serve as a cover for otherwise-impermissible collusion by parties to litigation against the interests of other stakeholders, such as the writers of these books, who were excluded from those negotiations,” said NWU President Larry Goldbetter.

Copyright law declares the creator of a work retains all rights not spelled out in the publishing contract. Until very recently, book contracts had no language whatever about e-books or digital rights. So when a publisher agrees to give Google access to its backlist of books, it’s very likely that the publisher is taking money for rights it doesn’t own. The authors own them.

Our organizations believe many publishers, including some of those who settled, have been engaged in the systematic theft of writers' electronic rights and e-book revenues where digital rights were never assigned by authors to publishers. They have been licensing e-book editions of works to which they hold only print rights.

The industry needs an open process whereby authors can challenge ownership of any rights in question.

Whether Google Can Legally Copy Millions of Books Is Still in Question

With 20 million books already scanned, Google continues scanning books daily. In The Authors Guild, Inc. et al. v. Google, now before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, writers say this is illegal, since those who hold the rights to the books haven’t given permission. Whether the publishers’ settlement with Google will affect the lawsuit is unclear.

We are concerned that this new, secret agreement will give Google erstwhile permission to ramp up its illegal scanning. Even for those books to which publishers can legitimately license e-book rights, many questions remain. The secrecy of the deal lends itself to abuses.

ASJA, NWU, and SFWA urge Google, the AAP, and the publisher litigants to do the right thing: disclose the complete terms of this settlement immediately. If the parties won't do so voluntarily, the Department of Justice needs to use its authority to investigate this agreement.

See ASJA/NWU/SFWA letter to U.S. Department of Justice here (pdf)

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Contacts:

Minda Zetlin, president, American Society of Journalists and Authors, 845-481-0252, president@asja.org

Larry Goldbetter, president, National Writers Union, 212-254-0279 x14, 773-551-7021 (cell), larryg601@gmail.com

Michael Capobianco, past president, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 301-274-9489, michael@michael-capobianco.com