The Montreal paper Le Devoir is reporting that TC Media – publisher of such magazines as Elle Canada, Style at Home and Canadian Living – has revised the contentious freelance contract that they introduced earlier this year. That contract demanded full copyright and a waiver of moral rights from its freelance contributors and provoked a widespread outcry from freelance writers and photographers across the country.
The Le Devoir article was published on Saturday and quotes Lise Paul-Hus, TC Media’s Vice President of Consumer Solutions for Montreal. In the article, Paul-Hus says the company made changes to the contract based on the feedback it received from freelancers. According to the article, the new contract will allow freelance contributors to TC Media publications to retain both their copyright and their moral rights.
A group of associations and unions — including the Canadian Media Guild, the Canadian Writers Group, the Canadian Freelance Union, the Professional Writers Association of Canada, The Writers’ Union of Canada, l’Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec (AJIQ), and the Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators (CAPIC) — worked in cooperation to bring the concerns of independent content creators to the attention of TC Media after the contract came to light last spring.
Keith Maskell, staff rep for the Canadian Media Guild, says he is cautiously optimistic at the news of TC Media’s revised contract.
“We don’t know yet what the new contract will look like so we have to remain vigilant,” he told Story Board via email this week.
