The Electronic Rights Defense Committee

I've pretty much deduced this on my own and it's good to know someone is willing to do something about. I can't prove it but I suspect my stuff and ideas have been "ripped off" so to speak. Here's a link to the ERDC website and an excerpt of its objective just below.

Freelance writers are essentially with little rights when it comes to copyright. All the power is on the "other" side. Let's hope Judge Eva Petras renders the appropriate verdict to allow the class action to go ahead.

Thanks to Lori Schubert over at the Quebec Writer's Federation for keeping us informed.

"On April 7, 1997, the Electronic Rights Defence Committee (ERDC) took the first steps toward a $33.3 million class action lawsuit in Quebec Superior court against Southam Inc, CEDROM-SNJI, Infomart-Dialog and Southam Business Communications for 37,000 instances of copyright infringement of freelancers' work dating back to 1985.

Eight years later, the ERDC is still battling to win recognition of the fact that Southam acted illegally in reproducing freelancers' work for years without seeking consent or providing compensation. While the ERDC is the plaintiff in this lawsuit and writer and journalist David Homel is serving as class representative, this action is on behalf of any freelance writer who ever wrote for The Gazette (Montreal). The newspaper has changed hands in the intervening years but the case continues against the Southam chain's legal successors."