NUJ lobbies for your rights

THE NUJ has made strongly-worded submissions in advance of the Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Lords on Wednesday 2 December.

At the request of a Lord who contacted the Creators' Rights Alliance, of which the NUJ is a member, and union activists picked three key points that must be observed.

"There will be no digital economy worth having," the CRA observes, "unless the individuals who create its 'content' remain able to make a professional living. We cannot live in 'wikiworld' - the universe of volunteer contributions, blogs, Sunday paintings and demo recordings - alone."

Section 42 of the Bill would allow the Minister to make regulations... to allow the use of works whose creators cannot be identified. "It is a logical and legal absurdity," we point out, "to make such provision while there are significant groups of authors who do not have the right to be identified as authors of their work." That'd be you, then.

We also demand that there must be a legal guarantee that "metatdata" - including your byline or picture credit - stays with everything published, online or otherwise.

And if there is to be any scheme for licensing use of orphaned works or collectively licensing to libraries or other bodies, then it may only be administered by organisations that genuinely represent creators.

© Mike Holderness