If each of our members gave just $40, we’d meet our year-end
fundraising goals. Can you help us meet our target?
Since our founding, Authors Alliance has supported laws, policies, and practices that help authors reach wide audiences: 2018 was again characterized by these ideals. We released our most ambitious resource yet, a guide to Understanding and Negotiating Book Publication Contracts, which will help you to negotiate for author-friendly variations to your contract terms. We highlighted the role that authors play in making digital works more widely accessible to people with disabilities with the release of a report on Authorship and Accessibility in the Digital Age. We launched a new copyright fundamentals resource page on our website, which includes information on how copyright registration can encourage onward uses of your works (and provides step-by-step guidance on how to register a work).
This year, we also continued to weigh in on important discussions that affect how you can create and share your works. We secured a modified exemption to Section 1201 of the DMCA that protects and expands your ability to circumvent technical protection measures to exercise your fair use rights to use film clips in e-books. We endorsed a position statement on controlled digital lending, an interpretation of copyright law that would help you reach readers, particularly when your books are out of print or commercially unavailable. On the international stage, we participated in WIPO meetings, presenting statements on the benefits to authors of limitations to copyright for libraries, archives, and museums; education; and for persons with disabilities.
We spread the word about our rights reversion and termination of transfer resources at events near and far, including a CopyTalk webinar that walks step-by-step through our termination tools. We celebrated the rights reversion successes of authors who have regained rights to make their works available to new audiences, either under Creative Commons licenses or at reduced prices. We weighed in on the importance of termination rights in copyright reform debates in South Africa and Canada, and we urged the U.S. Copyright Office to consider differentiated fees for recording terminations of transfers to make it possible for more authors to exercise termination rights.
We’re proud of our 2018 accomplishments, but we cannot do this work without your support. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation today to help us carry on our work in 2019. Every contribution enables us to do our part to help you keep on writing to be read!