I agree that many contracts these days allow for a certain amount of reuse of the content, though it is usually within the context of the title/brand in question.

There are many, many examples of Canadian writers turning magazine articles into books. I did so myself back in the 90s when I was starting out. A magazine feature for Saturday Night magazine became my book No Claim to Mercy. If I had done that today for a TC Media title under the “copyright” agreement, I would have had to get TC Media’s permission to sign my book contract, as all book contracts demand that you warrant you are the sole copyright holder. (This is something that TC Media has agreed is the case, and who knows, they may have demanded a cut.) Similarly, the first feature I ever wrote was optioned for a film. If I didn’t hold the copyright, that publisher would have received all of that money, which was a crucial piece of financing I needed to start my career.

A more current example, perhaps, is Russell Smith. We held onto the digital rights to his feature-length memoir about losing his eyesight, which ran in Toronto Life (print only) a year ago. We published it in e-book form (because he was the copyright holder), and Blindsided became a bestseller.

As to your point about “actual journalism”, I think you have it backwards. I could see a writer who specializes in, say, service copy about something relatively generic not being too fussed about copyright as long as the fee was agreeable, but if you’re covering an important and/or sensitive subject and you’ve put a lot of unique reporting into it, then I would think it becomes important, even from the sense of your commitment to your sources, that you maintain copyright. I’ve been in touch with a writer who’s been discussing a feature on a specific anti-child prostitution effort with a TC Media magazine, and there is no way that writer would even have the conversation with them under the now deep-sixed agreement. As someone who does “actual” journalism, I would argue that you have an obligation to protect the integrity of your work, and that’s pretty hard to do if you give up copyright, allow your moral rights to be waived and give the publishers the option of removing your byline from the work.

Last: Open File. We represent a number of writers who wrote for Open File and are part of the CMG. All of these writers were paid early in the process. (And I discussed this with David Topping way back when, I’m fairly certain.) So your assessment is not quite accurate. If you belong to CMG, you have access to legal representation under situations like this, among other useful things. So instead of sniping at an organization that helped people get paid, perhaps writers in an Open File-type situation in the future will turn to the CMG and become members.

Derek Finkle
Canadian Writers Group

The possibility of re-selling a radio documentary makes sense, but how many writers ACTUALLY turn their columns or articles into books?

How many artists (who aren’t selling prints retail) sell the same image thousands of times?

In the real world, most of us write something, have it published, and move on to the next assignment.

Maybe I’m just out of touch with “content creators” (a reductive term if I’ve ever heard one), because most of what I do is actual journalism.

But don’t for one second think that you speak for all freelancers – or any more than a tiny minority. You don’t speak for me and you don’t speak for anyone I know.

Where was the CMG when OpenFile writers were fighting to get paid? Tilting at windmills.

A radio documentary maker who does a piece for CBC can resell that very same piece to any number of additional media outlets and websites around the world. A writer can reuse a column or an article as part of a book. A photographer or illustrator can reuse an original work dozens or hundreds or thousands of times. All of that generates revenue; last time I checked, revenue was a good thing. But you can’t do any of those things if you’ve given up ownership and control of the work.

No one is saying that copyright can’t and shouldn’t ever be ceded. There are circumstances where a content creator can be convinced to surrender future rights in return for some (financial) compensation. But it shouldn’t be the default position, and it certainly shouldn’t be expected for free.

Enough people balked at the TC Media contract that the company is reviewing its options. You may think that freelancers are being quixotic – but then again you say you don’t care. Go ahead and give away all your rights to everything you create. The rest of us will try to earn a living.