Dear NWU Member:

We won! And we won big! Late Friday, we were notified that an Appeals Court had unanimously ruled in our favor in the landmark electronic rights lawsuit, TASINI V. THE NEW YORK TIMES.

We must all take full advantage of this historic ruling. As one of a series of innovative tactics the union has pursued, the lawsuit's central aim is to bring power and justice to writers.

We have prepared a series of documents for you at our website. Click here: http://www.nwu.org

Solidarity,

Jonathan Tasini - President

Q. How does the ruling affect my negotiations with an editor?

A. Publishers will continue to pressure writers to sign away electronic rights for no additional compensation. We must continue the fight against all-rights and work-for-hire contracts. We demonstrate our collective strength by individually refusing to give away these rights. The NWU recommends the following negotiating strategy:

1. Continue trying to negotiate contracts that give publishers nothing more than First North American Print Rights, or that provide for additional compensation for other uses. Continue using the NWU's Standard Journalism Contract.

2. If you can't retain the electronic rights and you can't get the editor to provide extra compensation explicitly tied to database use, argue for a higher print fee since the article is now worth more to the publisher.

3. Be especially careful to license different types of electronic rights separately. Lexis-Nexis rights are separate and distinct from Dialog rights; the right to include the article on the publisher's own website is separate and distinct from the right to include it on third party web sites. License only non-exclusive rights and try to limit the license to one year.

4. Please let the NWU know how your negotiations with editors change in the wake of the lawsuit ruling. Send copies of contracts and short summaries of your negotiating experiences to the National Office East by fax [212- 254-0673] or by e-mail: nwu@nwu.org.

AIRSPACE

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