Giblin and I wrote a whole-ass book about this and related subjects, #ChokepointCapitalism, which not only details the scams that writers like Willingham are subject to, but also devotes fully half its length to presenting detailed, technical, shovel-ready proposals for making life better for creators:
https://chokepointcapitalism.com/
Willingham is doing something important here.
48/
Larger and larger entertainment firms offer shabbier and shabbier treatment to creative workers, as striking members of @WGAWest and @SAGAFTRA can attest. Over the past year, I've seen a sharp increase in the presence of absolutely unconscionable clauses in the contracts I'm offered by publishers:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/27/reps-and-warranties/#i-agree
I'm *six months* into negotiating a contract for a *300 word* piece I wrote for a magazine I started contributing to in 1992.
49/
At issue is that they insist that I assign *film rights* and *patent rights* from my work as a condition of publication. Needless to say, there are no patentable inventions nor film ideas in this article, but they refuse to vary the contract, to the obvious chagrin of the editor who commissioned me.
Why won't they grant a variance?
50/
