Subject: Re: The Authors Registry From: brian@eit.com (Brian Smithson) Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 10:50:40 -0700

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On May 20, 10:35pm, J.J. Linden wrote:
>
> I don't know this list's policy on press releases, but I do know that
> that particular press release was 17KB long *encoded*, which means it
> will be about twice that decoded.
>
>-- End of excerpt from J.J. Linden

Actually, encoding make the file longer. The unencoded file was about 11KB.
However, the unencoded file appears to be in some sort of wordprocessor format.
Stripped of the wordprocessing stuff, it gets down to about 7KB. That's still a
fairly long press release.

Anyway, here's the readable ASCII text of the press release, as best I could
glean from the encoded/wordprocessed file. I have nothing to do with the
organizations involved, but thought that discussion would be more interesting
if people could actually read it :-).

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Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 1995

CONTACT:
The Authors Guild
ASJA
Robin Davis Miller or Paul Aiken
Dan Carlinsky
Phone: (212) 563-5904
(212) 861-2526

AUTHORS & AGENTS LAUNCH ASCAP ORGANIZATION FOR WRITERS TO ADDRESS ELECTRONIC
RIGHTS ISSUES

Authors Registry to Simplify Payment for On-Line, Multimedia Rights, Provide
Quick Access to Electronic, Film & Foreign Rightsholders

Caro, Doctorow, Friedan, Gleick, Goodman, Greene, Keillor, Michener, Pogrebin,
Quindlen, & Turow Among Founders

NEW YORK--A host of influential authors and agents have joined the Authors
Guild, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of
Authors' Representatives, and the Dramatists Guild in forming an organization
that does for writers and other copyright holders what ASCAP does for the
music world, the Guild, ASJA, and AAR announced today. The new organization,
The Authors Registry, Inc., provides a central directory of authors and will
provide a simple accounting system for paying royalties to registered authors.

"It's an idea whose time has come," said Authors Guild President Mary Pope
Osborne. "If the Information Age is to live up to its potential, then we have
to provide a means to simply and accurately reward authors for the use of
their works, no matter what the medium. The Registry's royalty payment
service does that, while the Registry's directory allows prospective rights
buyers ready access to authors and their agents."

"Publishers have told me they want this service," said ASJA President Janice
Hopkins Tanne. "It will solve their problem of paying writers for electronic
uses."

Author-founders of the Registry are Robert A. Caro, author of Means of Ascent:
The Years of Lyndon Johnson, E. L. Doctorow, author of The Waterworks, Betty
Friedan, author of The Fountain of Age, James Gleick, author of Genius: The
Life and Science of Richard Feynman, George J. W. Goodman ("Adam Smith"),
author of numerous books and magazine articles, Gael Greene, restaurant
critic for New York Magazine and author of Blue Skies, No Candy,  Garrison
Keillor, author of WLT: A Radio Romance, James A. Michener, author of The
Novel, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Deborah, Golda & Me: Being Female and
Jewish in America, Anna Quindlen, author of One True Thing, and Scott Turow,
author of Pleading Guilty. Georges Borchardt, of the Georges Borchardt
Literary Agency, and Perry Knowlton, chairman of the Curtis Brown Literary
Agency, are agent-founders of the Registry and will serve as its advisers.

"We had to come up with a better way for foreign publishers, movie producers,
and electronic media developers to reach authors and their agents," Ms.
Osborne said. "Now, instead of calling a publisher and waiting for a response
from an overburdened staff, the Registry's comprehensive directory will
provide callers with the name of an author's agent, or a contact address."

"Why should someone wanting to acquire film rights to a book have to be
bounced from the paperback publisher to the hardcover publisher to the agent?"
asked Georges Borchardt. "There are so many things that can go wrong. Agents
have long been concerned that the process of tracking down an agent for a work
can be so burdensome."

Nearly 15,000 Authors Registered

The Registry's database will be managed by Courier New Media, Inc., a
subsidiary of the Courier Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts. Individual
authors will be charged a registration fee, but agents and organizations
electronically registering 100 or more writers or artists will be able to
enroll their clients and members at no charge for the next 30 days. Agencies
representing fewer than 100 authors are encouraged to submit their lists
collectively. Membership in a founding organization is not required for
registration.

The Authors Guild's 7,000 authors, the ASJA's 1,000 authors, and the
Dramatists Guild's 6,500 authors will be the first listed with Courier in the
Registry's directory.

Simplifying Rights Payments for Electronic Media

"Publishers that are seeking to put their magazines on databases or otherwise
re-use material from their magazines in electronic form have been telling us
that sharing the proceeds on a per-retrieval basis isn't practical since they
would have to pay hundreds of writers small amounts of money," said Authors
Guild Vice President Scott Turow. "The Registry's royalty accounting and
payment service lifts that burden from the publisher."

"This is a godsend for the freelance writer," said Ms. Tanne. "If on-line
distribution of writers' works is going to become a significant part of the
publishing industry, then we're entitled to an equitable share of the revenue
from that use of our work. This allows magazines to do that."

CD-ROM publishers, who often have many rightsholders to pay, will find the
same advantages in the Registry's royalty payment system. "The model holds
well with multimedia publishers," said George Goodman. "By permitting these
publishers to pay on an advance-and-royalty basis without the burden of
detailed bookeeping, it allows them to lower their risk, which is the whole
point of royalty-based payments from the publishers' perspective. The
industry should welcome it."

Registry to Facilitate Photocopy Rights Clearance

The Registry will also focus on unauthorized photocopying of copyrighted
materials  and plans to work with the Copyright Clearance Center, the U.S.
collective licensing organization for photocopying, to ensure compatibility
with the CCC's system.

"We view the creation of the Authors Registry as highly promising," said CCC
President Joseph S. Alen. "We stand ready to assist the Registry in any way
we can to promote the licensing of photocopy and other rights."

Protecting & Using Intellectual Property

"We've all known for some time that the electronic world was creating new
challenges and dangers for those who care about intellectual property rights,"
said Mr. Gleick. "The Registry is our way of turning the power of new
technologies to good use. I think it's going to show that it is possible,
with some good will on all sides, to create new ways of not just guarding
intellectual property rights, but putting them to work."

Other Comments

Garrison Keillor: "The Authors Registry is the biggest thing since the
invention of the copyright. Writers disagree about everything else, but we
all agree that your work belongs to you. Until you can program computers to
write books and articles and stories, you have to pay writers for the use
of their work. That's what the Registry is for."

Dramatists Guild President Peter Stone: "This is a tremendous opportunity for
dramatists to protect their non-dramatic works and to further protect their
rights in their dramatic productions."

Gael Greene: "This is a move that will lift the burden from writers forced to
waste precious writing time pursuing royalties from copyright use and abuse.
Publishers and extra-rights users should appreciate a new tool for efficiency."

William Topaz, Vice President of Courier New Media, can be reached at
508-458-6351.

The Authors Registry, Inc.
THREE THIRTY WEST FORTY-SECOND STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10036-6902
(212) 563-6920

Founding Organizations
 The Authors Guild, Inc.
 The American Society of Journalists and Authors, Inc.
 The Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc.
 The Dramatists Guild, Inc.

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-- 
-Brian Smithson                                             brian@eit.com
 Enterprise Integration Technologies                      +1 415 617 8009
 800 El Camino Real                                   FAX +1 415 462 6369
 Menlo Park, CA 94025                            URL: http://www.eit.com/

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