The Cheque Is Not Yet in the Mail, But There's a Tentative Settlement in Part of the Electronic Rights Defence Committe's Class Action

It is always a pleasure when something you've been working on for a long time begins to bear fruit. That's what has happened in the class action suit against The Gazette of Montreal and various other entities over electronic rights, a case that has been going on for 13 years. This morning the ERDC sent out the following notice to ERDC members about a tentative settlement of part of the case. We're still a long way from paying out compensation to freelancers whose work has been used electronically without permission, but it's a step in the right direction.

The settlement also involves some interesting points about electronic rights about which we'll have more to say once the settlement is signed by all parties.

Here's the text of our message:

"Dear Friends

The Electronic Rights Defence Committee (ERDC) is pleased to announce it has reached a tentative settlement with two of the defendants in our long-running class class action arising from unauthorized electronic use of the freelance stories in The Gazette of Montreal. In addition, the Quebec Superior Court has ordered the posting of a Notice to Members of the class together with copies of the settlements. This starts the ball rolling toward a payout to class members. You'll find the documents attached.

The settlements are with Canwest Publishing Inc./Publications Canwest Inc.(which is the legal successor through amalgamation of Montreal Gazette Group Inc, Canwest Interactive and Infomart Dialog Limited) and Canwest Global Communications Corporation. Both are in protection-against-creditors proceedings before Ontario courts. This means that the actual amount of the settlements is undetermined at present because the creditors' claims against the corporations are still being processed.

However ERDC’s claim against Canwest Publishing has been valued at $8,500,000 for voting and distribution purposes in respect of any plan of compromise or arrangement proposed by CPI to its creditors. The ERDC's claim with Canwest Global Communications is valued at $500,000. In both cases these amounts will be reduced very substantially as the protection-against-creditors procedures are wound up. It is possible that we could receive about 10 to 15 cents on the dollar. Certainly it will be months, if not years before we receive anything.

Both these settlements require court approval. We will have more to say about what they mean in the days to come.

The documents we're sending you will also be posted on our website, http://www.erdc.ca, as well as on that of six writers organizations. Please feel free to circulate the notice widely.

Cheers

Jack Ruttan, secretary
Mary Soderstrom, president

List of other organizations which will post the notices

http://www.sfpavocats.ca (Attorneys of the group Website)
http://www.writersunion.ca (The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC))
http://www.qwf.org (Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF))
http://www.uneq.qc.ca (Union des écrivains québécois (UNEQ))
http://www.pwac.ca (Professionial Writers’ Association of Canada (PWAC))
http://www.ajiq.qc.ca (Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec(AJIQ))
http://www.cfunion.ca (Canadian Freelance Union (CFU)"