Syd would not have agreed with this
Update: Read Bauer’s response and our verdict in this post here…
Billy Bragg, Miranda Sawyer, punk historian Jon Savage are amongst 200 writers threatening to stop writing for Q (recently starring Lady Gaga), MOJO and Kerrang!, the music titles owned by German publishing giant Bauer. There’s a row about terms and conditions, and in particular, Bauer seems to want freelance writers to agree to an “unlimited lifetime financial indemnity in the event of legal action arising from their work”.
Hmm, on that basis, presumably no freelance writer would be able to get a mortgage. You write a piece, forget about it, then get sued a few months later, and then, you have to pay a lawyer thousands to defend you, before going broke a few months after that. One of the fundamental purposes of a publisher is somebody who stands behind the writer commercially, helping them get paid, and if necessary defending their work too.
If Bauer, say, can’t be bothered with that hassle, then all it is doing is printing words on glossy paper. Libel is a serious, expensive business, well beyond the means of a bloke with a pen. Until this one is sorted out, maybe it’s time to buy the new look NME (owned by rival IPC) instead.
** Thanks to everybody who tweeted out this story, which has been generating huge traffic. Our retweet button is broke (don’t ask) so if you want a short link to it, use this: http://wp.me/pO2fO-vB
Here’s the freelances’ joint statement if you wanna read that.
Nice thoughts. I look forward to reading more… Guessing from your posts, you may, or you may not, digg this blog I have been reading. It’s pretty whacky, but I can’t get enough, you just never can tell what is going to happen! http://tomperignon.blogspot.com/
I’m not music journalists biggest fan. But this is setting a very dangerous precedent. The end result will be very bland journalism with no one daring to express their true feelings or any feature with ‘spice’ in it.
The publisher will be the loser in the end, through lack of sales of a very boring, insipid publication. Something in the age of the internet…is not a good thing.
[...] Dan Sabbagh, writing about this on Beehive City, says: “Hmm, on that basis, presumably no freelance writer would be able to get a mortgage. You write a piece, forget about it, then get sued a few months later, and then, you have to pay a lawyer thousands to defend you, before going broke a few months after that. One of the fundamental purposes of a publisher is somebody who stands behind the writer commercially, helping them get paid, and if necessary defending their work too.” [...]
Buy the new NME if you like, but the fact is that IPC have been running a similarly unscrupulous ‘all rights, in perpetuity’ contract for years. (Though possibly without the libel-clause.) It’s just that their freelancers couldn’t get it together to create a stink. Even in office job, they put loads of people on short, rolling contracts for years at a time to save themselves the liabilty of genuine employment. This obviously goes against the spirit of all present employment law, but they’ve evidently found a way to ‘legalise’ it.
Up to their old tricks, I see.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=41692