"There is a huge battle over intellectual property rights, especially with freelancers, but also with our members who work under collective bargaining agreements. The freelance agreements that writers are asked to sign are shocking. Bear in mind that freelance writers are paid very little. They turn over all their future rights - reuse rights - to the publisher and very little in exchange. Publishers are fighting for control and ownership of product, because they are seeing the future."
Another participant to this Symposium, Heinz-Uwe Rübenach, of the Federal
Association of German Newspaper Publishers (Bundesverband Deutscher
Zeitungsverleger), said:
"Copyright is one of the keys to the future information society. If a publishing house which offers the journalist work, even on an on-line service, is not able to manage and control the use of the resulting product, then it will not be possible to finance further investments in the necessary technology. Without that financing, the future becomes less positive and jobs can suffer. If, however, publishers see that they are able to make multiple use of their investment, then obviously this is beneficial for all. Otherwise the costs associated with on-line services would increase considerably. As far as the European market is concerned, this would only increase competitive pressures, since United States publishers do not have to pay for multiple uses."
DOI: The Digital Object Identifier System is an identification system for intellectual property in the digital environment. Developed by the DOI Foundation on behalf of the publishing industry, its goals are to provide a framework for managing intellectual content, link customers with publishers, facilitate electronic commerce, and enable automated copyright management.
The Introduction to the Digital Object Identifier specifies:
"The Internet represents a totally new environment for commerce. As such, it requires new enabling technologies to protect both customer and publisher. Systems will have to be developed to authenticate content to insure that what the customer is requesting is what is being delivered. At the same time, the creator of the information must be sure that the copyright in the content is respected and protected.
In considering the new systems required, international book and journal publishers realized that a first step would be the development of a new identification system to be used for all digital content. This Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system not only provides a unique identification for that content, but also a way to link users of the materials to the rights holders themselves to facilitate automated digital commerce in the new digital environment.
Developed and tested over the last year, the DOI system is now being used by more than a dozen U.S. and European publishers in a pilot program that has been running since July. Participation in Phase Two of the Prototype was extended to all publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 1997."
Penny Pagano, a former Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. In Intellectual Property Rights and the World Wide Web, an article published in AJR/NewsLink, she wrote: "Today, those who create information and those who publish, distribute and repackage it are finding themselves at odds with each other over the control of electronic rights."
Among many comments mentioned by Penny Pagano is the one of Dan Carlinksy, writer and vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, in New York.