Re: Double-licenses -- Tasini et al

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Karen Hunter sends the following message:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: KABowen@aol.com
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 23:01:44 EST
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: "Double-licenses" -- Tasini et al

Terry Collins stated that cases such as Tasini v. NYT "make clear that
many major publishers (e.g., New York Times...) neither require copyright
releases nor sign contracts with authors for materials they publish."

Since January of 1998 I have been serving on a National Research Council
study committee on "Intellectual Property Rights and the Emerging
Information Infrastructure."  One of the other committee members is
Jonathan Tasini and he has been very active in educating those of us from
the scholarly publishing world about the present relationship freelance
writers have with major companies such as the NYT.  He contends there is
not a single major media company that does not now require that all
writers sign contracts giving the media company full rights in perpetuity
in all media.

Karen Hunter
Elsevier Science
k.hunter@elsevier.com