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Bang to rights: publisher pays up for breach

THE FREELANCE brings you another in our intermittent series of stories of successful negotiation...

Cash, in hand

A FREELANCE music writer on her way through Charing Cross station in London spotted a one-off special edition of a music magazine devoted to a big star - an artist she'd often covered. She took a peek - and there was her byline and a thousand of her finest words.

Her records of business emails showed she'd written the piece for this same publisher - and that they'd requested permission to reproduce it later for £50. She had said "no". They had reprinted it anyway, without permission - and, they'd presumed, for free.

But no. She didn't let it slide. She wrote and told them they'd done wrong. She told them that they could avoid a visit to small claims court by paying her 75 per cent of the initial fee, namely £300.

Thus caught bang to rights, they coughed up and the freelance's holiday fund got a welcome boost.

The editor adds: There are no rules on what we should be paid when our copyright work is stolen. It's usually whatever we can negotiate.

Sadly, if you win in court you'll usually get only what you would have been paid had they asked nicely in the first place. In this case, the freelance having a record of having refused a licence would be a strong argument for a court seeing the breach as "flagrant" - which should mean more money.

But it's relatively cheap for you to go through the small claims court process - and NUJ members can get help from the Freelance Office. The company, on the other hand, cannot appear in court in person, not being human or even mammalian. So if it wants to defend the case it must engage a lawyer. So the answer to the question "how much should I ask for a breach of copyright?" is often "twice the amount you first thought of" - and the miscreant company still saves, compared to fighting the case.

And if you had ever wondered whether it's worth filing your old emails... this is a reason to do that.