There is nothing humorous about the fact that millions of dollars are being paid in royalty fees, of which the intellectual property rights holders do not get one cent.

Due to current contractual obligations, not much more can be said at this point in time, except to watch out for the January 2007 edition of the journal Editorial Eye. More in the next edition of WLW ...

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The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI) - headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland - was "was created in 1967 with the stated purpose of encouraging creative activity and promoting the protection of intellectual property throughout the world" according to Wikipedia.

You should note the mandate to 'promote the protection', not actually to protect or enable protection. When the WLW investigative team sought advice from a Senior Legal Counsellor of WIPO's Copyright Law Division on a 'generic' question, the information provided was that they didn't provide any legal advice on international copyright.

When asked "if there was another international intellectual property organization that engaged senior legal counsel in a copyright law capacity who might be able to answer a generic copyright legal question", for some reason there was no reply ...

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DOCUMENT DELIVERY SERVICES

So where's the money?

Libraries offering a document delivery service may not have wondered previously about the ultimate fate of the 'copyright fees' they collect, then pass back to the appropriate collection agencies.

This may soon change after the forthcoming changes are enacted. Whilst many may be ambivalent as to the nature of 'free information', librarians as traditional upholders of Fair Play may shortly be called on to put the money (they collected) where their mouths are ...

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PUBLISHING

But wait! There's more ...

Recent inquiries have revealed that a number of journal publishers are claiming ownership of all rights, despite the lack of any contracts, signed agreements, or other communication as to any residual and/or future royalties.

As if that isn't bad enough, it appears that copyright collection agencies do not require publishers to authenticate their claims to intellectual property rights. This means that the casual, freelance author isn't even informed that their publishers are receiving royalty payments, let alone receiving their just dues ...

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WRITER ADVISORY SERVICES

Time to take action

At the time of writing, US presidential mentionee Ralph Nadar has maintained silence on the issue of non-payment of royalties to low-profile freelance library journal article writers.

Whilst in no doubt as to any Support In Principle from the high-profile lobbyist, just in case there is no actual concrete advice or advocacy WLW will shortly publish more information and some actual real advice ...

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There will be some WLW readers who will be disappointed that there has been something of a lag in the publication of recent WLW editions.

However, as will soon become apparent, The Editor has been more than a tad tied up with investigating a major series of 'holes' in international copyright - and following through with trying to getting at least some of them plugged up.

This special edition will allow at least a brief glimpse at the backstage of the 100-plus emails, phone calls, interviews, and other communications that will shock any casual 'freelance' writer. And yes, that includes anyone who has ever written for any library journal ...

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listents we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Andre Gide, Le traite du Nacisse (1891)

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