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The following is distributed with the permission of the
writer. This happened to be published on the first
anniversary of Nicholson Baker's influential New York
Times op-ed essay, "Infohighwaymen," which launched our
Operation Magazine Index campaign, and in turn led to
the formation of Publication Rights Clearinghouse.

Matt Westendorf
Office Administrator
West Coast Office
National Writers Union

***************

FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
October 18, 1995

CYBERSHOCK
Righting Copywrongs

By Craig McLaughlin

The first time Irvin Muchnick, assistant director of the
National Writers Union, sent me materials about Operation
Magazine Index, I agreed it was an important story that I
should tackle in this column. But that was several months
ago, and I kept finding other things to write about. Now,
however, I have a vested interest.

Muchnick's method of getting writers interested in OMI can
be pretty effective. He does an electronic search of on-
line magazine indexes and shows the writers that articles
they wrote for print are being resold in electronic form --
and in most cases the writer is not getting any of the
proceeds. It's akin to actors not being paid for reruns.
Most freelance writers, when they sell an article, sell
only the first North American serial rights. After the
article runs, the author regains rights to it unless a
contract explicitly states that the publisher retains those
rights.

"Freelance writers make their money selling seconds,"
Muchnick tells me. "Otherwise they can't pay the rent."

Magazine and newspaper indexes aren't new, but now many of
those indexes contain full-text articles. I can go to my
local library, for instance, and pull articles off a
service called InfoTrac. Information companies such as
InfoTrac make money selling access to those articles -- in
effect, electronically republishing them -- but instead of
paying writers for them, in most cases they are paying
magazine publishers. "The basic issue is that there is a
piece of pie out there and more of it has to go into the
pockets of the writers," Muchnick says.

The packet Muchnick sent me last spring didn't overwhelm
me, since most of my writing has been for alternative
weeklies, and alternative weeklies aren't widely available
on-line. (The most interesting thing to me was that his
search turned up articles by the other Craig McLaughlin, a
Maine-based naturalist and writer.) The only piece of mine
mentioned was a 1987 article in Sierra, and that was only a
citation. But when I let Muchnick know I was ready to write
about his project, he ran the search again. On a service
called UnCover he turned up a piece I did this May for
Metropolis, a New York-based architecture and design
magazine. For $11.50 UnCover will fax customers a copy of
that article; $3 of that cost is a copyright fee. But if
anybody has downloaded that story, the $3 hasn't gotten to
me.

If I'm going to be published electronically, though,
UnCover is the place to be, because it is party to OMI's
first major success. In August NWU approved the creation of
the Publication Rights Clearinghouse, which will help
member writers establish their rights to their articles. If
the UnCover system sells an article owned by a PRC member,
it will pay the copyright fee to PRC, which will take out a
small administrative charge and pay the rest to the writer.

I think, however, that I may have signed away my rights to
the Metropolis article. Somewhere in my to-be-filed there's
a contract I only vaguely remember, but I know that it
contained some broad language about what rights the
magazine was purchasing. That, too, is part of the problem.
Muchnick says he hopes PRC will make writers more careful
about what they sign.

OMI is now focusing on working out a similar agreement with
Information Access Company, based in Foster City, Calif.
According to Muchnick, an unreceptive IAC has suggested
that OMI's beef is really with the publishers who signed
copyright agreements with the company. When asked about
IAC's being singled out and accused of piracy, IAC
publicist Maureen Carrig told me, "We do not have any
comment."

NWU has indeed taken its case to the publishers. President
Jonathan Tasini is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit
against the New York Times, Mead Data Central, and other
publishers and database companies over alleged copyright
violations. The case may be heard early next year. And
hundreds of writers -- including Erica Jong, Barbara
Kingsolver, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal -- have
complained to the New York Times about its decision to
blacklist any writer who won't surrender electronic reprint
rights. The campaign against the Times and a growing list
of other publications is coordinated by the NWU, the
Authors Guild, and the American Society of Journalists and
Authors. Muchnick says: "The publishers are making our case
for us. They know they're not going to prevail on the law,
so they're going to use their power in the marketplace to
gain what would not rightfully be theirs."

Muchnick says there are many ways for writers to protect
themselves, including selling their rights for a higher
initial payment instead of going with a royalty system. For
example, the Bay Guardian pays me a small premium for the
right to reprint this column on Guardian OnLine.

Sorting out the process of protecting copyrights in
cyberspace will only get more complex. Muchnick says he
simply wants to make sure that writers have a seat at the
table when the solutions are hammered out. "Publishers are
trying to seize control of the electronic repackaging of
traditional magazine articles. We just want good faith
negotiations -- which we don't have now."

The West Coast office of NWU can be reached at 337 17th
St., Suite 101, Oakland, CA 94612; [phone];
[e-mail]; or ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/nw/nwu, or
contact the Bay Area local at [phone].
__________

Craig McLaughlin ([e-mail]) is a syndicated
columnist in Olympia, Wash.