Auckland, NZ by Mathew Waters | CC0

As our members know, part of our mission here at Authors Alliance is to spread the word about our work to empower authors in the digital age. We’ve hosted workshops and attended events throughout North America, and now our Executive Director Mike Wolfe will be heading to Australia and New Zealand to attend a series of events and connect with our friends and members in those countries.

We hope to see many of you at the following events. Spread the word!

Monday, September — 12 University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
2:00-4:30 PM — Scholarly Publishing workshop at Waikato University
5:30-7:00 PM — Lecture on “Copyright, Long-term Accessibility, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”

Tuesday, September 13 — University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
4:30 PM — “Maximise the impact of your research”

Thursday, September 15 — Brisbane, Australia
Panel on authorship at Queensland University of Technology

Saturday, September 17 — National Writers Forum, Auckland, NZ
1:00 PM — Panel on copyright and contracts at the National Writers Forum in Auckland (conference registration required)

We would like to acknowledge and thank Creative Commons Aotearoa/New Zealand, LIANZA (Library and Information Association New Zealand), the University of Waikato, the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, and the Queensland University of Technology for their support in making this travel possible.

Welcoming visitors at the 2015 Bay Area Book Festival

On the first weekend in June, downtown Berkeley will be transformed into a book lover’s paradise. The second annual Bay Area Book Festival is coming to town, and once again, Authors Alliance will be part of the fun. We’ll be staffing an information booth in the “Writer’s Row” section of the festival on Center Street, and look forward to taking part in this can’t-miss event for everyone who enjoys reading and writing as much as we do.

The Bay Area Book Festival is free and family-friendly, and runs from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday, June 4  and Sunday, June 5. We invite our local friends and neighbors to stop by and meet us, and learn how Authors Alliance can help creators with copyright, publishing contracts, fair use, and more!

Brianna Schofield, Mike Wolfe, and Lila Bailey consider an audience question during their panel on authors’ rights at the AWP conference in Los Angeles.

Authors Alliance has been invited by California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) to reprise our well-received panel discussion from the recent Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. “On Your Terms: Managing Your RIghts to Keep Your Work Available” will be presented on Wednesday, April 27 in Berkeley.

The event is open to CLA members and the general public. Registration is required on the CLA event page.  (For those unable to attend, we have posted the slide deck from the presentation.)

Authors of all kinds are routinely asked to sign contracts that carve up their copyrights and determine where, how, and by whom their works can be published. This panel examines some of the ways authors can ensure that these agreements don’t stand between their work and their audience. Join Authors Alliance Executive Director Mike Wolfe and fellow copyright attorneys Lila Bailey and Brianna Schofield to work on demystifying embargoes, licenses, negotiations, rights reversions, and terminations of transfers. Be empowered to shape your own contracts!

photo credit: Architect of the Capitol | public domain

The cherry trees are in bloom in the nation’s capital, but our Executive Director, Michael Wolfe, won’t have much time for sightseeing—he’ll be traveling to Washington, D.C. to represent Authors Alliance at a series of events over the next ten days.

First on the agenda is DPLAFest, hosted by the Digital Public Library of America from April 14-16. The conference “brings together librarians, archivists, and museum professionals, developers and technologists, publishers and authors, teachers and students, and many others to celebrate DPLA and its community of creative professionals.” This year’s venues include the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress.

On April 18, Mike will participate in a panel discussion at “Authors, Attribution, and Integrity: Examining Moral Rights in the United States,” a one-day symposium hosted by the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. Topics will include the “historical development of moral rights, the value that authors place on moral rights generally and individual moral rights specifically, the various ways these rights are provided for under current law, and new considerations for the digital age.” He will speak about the current state of protection of moral rights in the U.S.

The American University Washington College of Law is hosting an Authors Alliance meet-and-greet with MIke Wolfe, Peter Jaszi, Mike Carroll, and Brandon Butler on April 19 at 3:30 PM. The university community is invited to bring questions and chat about topics such as rights reversion, maximizing the impact of publications, and the effects of copyright law on scholarship and teaching. The event will be held in Warren N102, Washington College of Law, 4300 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.

Finally, to wrap up a busy week of events, Mike will attend the inaugural Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI) Conference from April 20-22 at George Mason University. This invitation-only conference is being held for the first time in 2016, and launches an ambitious ten-year effort to bring together key stakeholders from around the world and chart a course in scholarly communication across disciplines.

Join Authors Alliance’s Pamela Samuelson and Michael Wolfe for a workshop at the San Francisco Public Library that will explore how authors and researchers can manage their legal rights and choose publication outlets with an eye on securing long-term impact and availability. Among the questions to be discussed:

• What are terms to look for in publication contracts?
• How and when does open access benefit authors?
• What can be done to increase the availability of out-of-print and backlist titles?
• What resources can authors who write to be read use in managing their own rights?

Audience members are encouraged to submit questions in advance to info@authorsalliance.org.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged but not required. More information can be found here.

Our events programming, our tools and resources, and our advocacy all depend on the continued support of our members. Help us keep things going by joining, donating, and spreading the word!

The Authors Alliance team is back from Los Angeles, and we’re happy to report that our visit to UCLA and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference was a great success. We’d like to extend a warm welcome to all our new members!

An informal meet and greet event at the UCLA Library on March 31 brought together a group of faculty, staff, and others interested in issues of scholarly communication and copyright for a conversation with Mike Wolfe and UCLA librarians. To take those discussions even further, we’re planning an Authors Alliance workshop at UCLA in the near future—details to be announced soon.

From March 31 through April 2, we hosted a table at the AWP Bookfair, and were gratified by the level of interest and engagement from the writing community. Conference attendees kept us busy with questions about our resources and tools, and we were thrilled to have so many enthusiastic new members join the Authors Alliance. If you’d like to be part of our growing community of authors and creators, it’s easy to sign up online (membership is free).

In addition to staffing a robust information table, we also presented a conference panel, “On Your Terms: Managing Your Rights to Keep Your Work Available”, led by Authors Alliance executive director  Michael Wolfe and copyright attorneys Brianna Schofield, and Lila Bailey. We were glad to see the session so well attended and were pleased to answer audience questions on topics ranging from Creative Commons licenses to rights reversions to publication contract language. For those attendees interested in having a reference version of the slides, and for those who were unable to attend, you are welcome to download the presentation here. Lila, Brianna, and Michael will also be reprising their presentation at a California Lawyers for the Arts event later this April—sign up while there is still room!

Thank you, Los Angeles, for such a memorable trip. We look forward to visiting again soon!

image by Henning Witzel | CC0

We’d like to remind our readers about a series of events coming up later this week in Los Angeles:

On March 31, we are co-hosting an informal meet-and-greet at the UCLA Library. The university community is invited to bring questions and chat with UCLA Library staff and Mike Wolfe, Authors Alliance’s executive director, about topics such as rights reversion, maximizing the impact of publications, and the effects of copyright law on scholarship and teaching.

From March 31 through April 2, we will be staffing an information booth in the Bookfair area of the  Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This will be an excellent opportunity for us to meet face-to-face with a diverse group of authors and connect them with our tools and resources.

No fooling! On Friday, April 1, meet Authors Alliance staff and fellow members from 4:00-6:00 PM for an informal happy hour at the Library Bar in downtown Los Angeles.

On April 2, Authors Alliance is pleased to present a panel discussion at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles. The panel, “On Your Terms: Managing Your Rights to Keep Your Work Available”  will be led by copyright attorneys  Michael Wolfe,  Brianna Schofield, and Lila Bailey.

We look forward to connecting with our members and allies in the City of Angels!

At the end of this month, we’ll be traveling to Los Angeles to meet with the UCLA community and to attend the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).

On March 31, we are co-hosting an informal meet-and-greet at the UCLA Library. The university community is invited to bring questions and chat with UCLA Library staff and Mike Wolfe, Authors Alliance’s executive director, about topics such as rights reversion, maximizing the impact of publications, and the effects of copyright law on scholarship and teaching.

We look forward to meeting with our members and allies at UCLA, and are planning another UCLA event to be held in May—details coming soon!

On April 2, Authors Alliance is pleased to present a panel discussion at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles. The panel, “On Your Terms: Managing Your Rights to Keep Your Work Available”  will be led by copyright attorneys  Michael Wolfe,  Brianna Schofield, and Lila Bailey.

Authors of all kinds are routinely asked to sign contracts that carve up their copyrights and determine where, how, and by whom their works can be published. The panel will examine some of the ways authors can ensure that these agreements don’t end up standing between their work and their audience. The discussion will focus on demystifying embargoes, licenses, negotiations, rights reversions, and terminations of transfers, empowering authors to shape their own contracts.

From March 31 through April 2, we will be also be staffing an information booth in the Bookfair area of the conference. This will be an excellent opportunity for us to meet face-to-face with a diverse group of authors and connect them with our tools and resources.

If you will be at the AWP conference, you can attend our panel at 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 2—and be sure to stop by our conference booth and say hello! We look forward to meeting with our members and allies in Southern California, and are currently planning another event to be held in Los Angeles in May (details to be announced soon).