Yankee Magazine to Pay for
E-Rights Through the Authors Registry
May 15, 1997 - Yankee has become the first regional magazine
to sign with the Authors Registry to funnel royalties to freelance writers for
reuse of their work in electronic databases.
Under the terms of its recently revised standard freelance contract,
Yankee and its outside contributors will share evenly all royalties
from article databases on online services subscribed to by computer users and
on CD-ROMs sold to libraries. The Authors Registry, the not-for-profit licensing
and payment clearinghouse, will distribute writers' shares.
Since it began operations last year, the Registry's deals on behalf of freelance
writers have been with national publications, including Harper's, Cooking
Light and Travel & Leisure. Yankee Publishing, Inc. produces
Yankee, which has a monthly circulation of 700,000, and other publications,
including two well known annuals, the Old Farmer's Almanac and Yankee
Magazine's Travel Guide to New England.
Yankee's new article contract provides for additional payments to writers
for rights beyond first use in the magazine. Besides the database royalty split,
Yankee writers receive an extra fee for up to a year's use on the magazine's
World Wide Web site and another fee if a Yankee article is reused in the
Travel Guide.
"We're getting some nice feedback about our contract and our arrangement with
the Registry," says Ann Duffy, Yankee's editorial business manager. "Some
writers have clipped notes to the contract when they send it back, saying they
appreciate our fairness."
The Authors Registry boasts unprecedented support from more than 100 literary
agencies and nearly every important writers' organization in the United States
– more than 30 groups – whose clients and members are automatically
eligible for enrollment without charge. Unaffiliated freelancers may join as
individuals for $10.
Copyright ©1997 - 2005 The Authors Registry.
All rights reserved.
