Ever been to the dog races?
The greyhounds are taught to chase a mechanical rabbit that eventually disappears when the race is over. The dogs never catch the rabbit.
Just like the dogs, freelance writers have been chasing a non-existent settlement for more than eight years. Irvin Muchnick objected to a fair settlement in 2005 and writers have been waiting around ever since. Muchnick is the kind of person who can only gain joy from others' suffering, so these last eight years must have been like Valhalla to the failed writer.
This carrot-and-stick routine has gotten stale over the last few months. Muchnick's attorney keeps promising a revised settlement any day, but there are always new problems popping up.
We're not playing their reindeer games any more.
This blog will continue to monitor the rantings and ravings of Muchnick. Muchnick is a complete disaster who is never right about anything. Therefore, there is an endless supply of new material to comment upon. The traffic on this blog keeps increasing, so I guess all the people that Muchnick has screwed over the years are finding it through word of mouth.
But as for the primary reason for this blog--we won't be commentating anymore about a mirage of a settlement.
Actually, the freelance class action settlement effort dates to 1999. That's when the Authors Guild and American Society of Journalists and Authors (can't recall offhand if the National Writers Union came on board then or later) first filed suit against publishers in federal court seeking compensation for years of unlawful infringements and hoping to set up a royalty payment system going forward. It took six years for a settlement to be hammered out (and for the royalty idea to get jettisoned), primarily crafted by uber mediator Kenneth Feinberg. At that point Mr. Muchnick and a handful of dissident writers (of which he was the most vocal and strident) set in motion that last seven-plus years of court machinations. Disclosure: I'm a named plaintiff in the class action suit.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. You are 100 per cent correct. I am just a member of the class and thus got involved in 2005. As a named plaintiff, I'm sure you have much more to lose than I do. I can only imagine your feelings concerning Irvin Muchnick. He objected--and for what? Because he thought the settlement was worth more? As usual, he believes he knows more than anyone else, including a world-famous mediator like Kenneth Feinberg. Just a big, giant shame.
ReplyDeleteNever trust a man whose author's bio pic looks to be about 30 years out of date. :)
ReplyDeleteWe need to investigate the possibility that Muchnick and his attorney have been on the publishers' payroll all along.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the publishers don't mind spending money. Who knows how much they have spent on attorneys? They just don't want to spend money on writers because they're Randians who believe that we are an inferior species and don't want to pay us for spite. And spite is what Muchnick is all about. I still believe his motive was to punish his longtime archenemy Tasini.
The alternative theory is that Muchnick is the dumbest person on this planet. And that couldn't be true, could it?
And there will be a settlement. About 10 writers will find out about it -- and the publishers will successfully challenge all of their claims. Who's going to protect us? The very attorney who made sure that we didn't get paid from 2005 through now?
ReplyDeleteMr. Conflict Of Interest himself has no ethics, no sense of human decency, and ain't very bright.
Where's our royalty system?