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The open-source model, and that includes Creative Commons, is predicated on the retention by content creators of copyright and moral rights. Sign away copyright to another individual or corporate entity, and you forego all rights in your work. One should never underestimate the importance of moral rights to freelance writers. Last night I received an off-list message from a former freelance contributor to Research Media Ltd. This chap tells me that he was paid £50 to edit an interview transcript down to 750 words, and produce a 1,250-word feature article. Substantial background research work was required. Even a highly experienced and efficient writer would take hours to complete such a task, such that the equivalent hourly rate for the job could conceivably fall below the national minimum wage. Contrast this with the £60 for one hour mentioned yesterday by MK, which is quite reasonable when one factors in the amount of time spent by self-employed wordsmiths writers in procuring work and dealing with business administration, and the reduced overhead costs incurred by companies that commission freelance workers. In her on-list reply today, Sarah Anderson refers to 500-650-word short pieces. Many experienced writers would struggle to knock out a coherent 500-word blog post in an hour, and, if you will excuse my cynicism, blogging is stream-of-consciousness stuff that requires little or nothing in the way of considered thought. One assumes that RML is looking for something more substantial and rigorous than this. Light editing and news briefing jobs for RML that take no more than an hour to complete might be cost-effective for a freelance, but not interview condensing and feature article writing. Unless, that is, RML’s current rates for the latter are several times those quoted by my correspondent. RML is in the business of promoting the work of scientists and technologists. As such it is PR rather than journalism, and the business model involves actively soliciting within academia and engineering industry. RML is one of a number of companies operating in this field, and the going rate for feature articles showcasing the work of researchers is €2,500 or more. Those of you who understand Swedish can learn more of RML here… http://goo.gl/SejWSt In the respected science magazine Curie, journalist Anne Brynolf quotes senior academics and publishing executives, and discusses the blurring of the line between journalism and PR in the context of open-access publishing. Freelance rates aside, that is an interesting subject in itself. The title of Brynolf’s article translates as “Pay dearly to showcase your research”. Francis On 12 Nov 13, at 11:10, Usher, Oli <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > This is technically true, but the distinction is tiny in practice – CC-by licences are very permissive and the economic value of the rights which are retained by the copyright holder is minimal. (NB this is not true of any of the other CC licences, all of which have substantial strings attached). > > The only thing the rights holder could still potentially do for a CC-by-licensed work is to charge for the right to reproduce the work without attribution. > > Oli > > From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Snell-Pym > Sent: 12 November 2013 10:53 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] freelance science communicators wanted > > But you don't need to sign them away for the work to be used under that licence. Signing away implies that you are giving the company the rights and then they release it under the CC - so it really depends on what they meant in the first place. > > Sarah > > On 12 Nov 2013, at 10:11, Usher, Oli wrote: > > > Signing away intellectual property rights so things can be released under Creative Commons licences is rather different to signing away intellectual property rights so they can be exploited commercially without giving compensation, isn’t it? > > It’s also the basis of the Open Access model for scholarly publications, not to mention free/open source software, citizen science and Wiki projects, which I imagine a lot of people on this list are supportive of. > > Oli > > From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Francis Sedgemore > Sent: 11 November 2013 17:24 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] freelance science communicators wanted > > If a “standard assignment” is a short news piece of no more than a couple of hundred words, with little or no research input, then £60 might be acceptable. I am talking about NUJ recommended rates for the job. > > Think of it in terms of an hourly equivalent rate. What is your time worth as a specialist writer? > > As for copyright, this is a concern, and the NUJ position is that freelance writers should not sign away their intellectual property rights. On the other hand, does an old news briefing have any resale value? > > Let’s not jump to conclusions, but instead wait for clarification from the publisher. > > Francis > > On 11 Nov 13, at 17:11, Paul G Raven <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > Good points, Tony. > > (Although, speaking from personal experience, anyone willing to contemplate £60 flat-fee writing gigs is probably so accustomed to signing over all their rights to the work that they'd not even blink at being asked to do so. The rent doesn't pay itself, after all.) > > -- > Dr Francis Sedgemore > journalist, writer and physicist > telephone: +44 7840 191336 > website: sedgemore.com -- Dr Francis Sedgemore journalist, writer and physicist telephone: +44 7840 191336 website: sedgemore.com ********************************************************************** Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print **********************************************************************