{"id":18841,"date":"2025-09-12T22:11:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T22:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18841\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T22:11:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T22:11:33","slug":"press-release-september-12-2025-sfwa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/18841\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Release – September 12, 2025 – SFWA"},"content":{"rendered":"

SFWA President Kate Ristau:
Tasting Notes from Recent Advocacy, Education, and Outreach<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Some days, the publishing industry is like a nice cup of tea: warm, supportive and just the right amount of comforting. Other days, it burns your tongue and scalds your hands. It\u2019s overly sweet or way too bitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take the metaphor one step further and spill the tea, shall we?<\/p>\n

This week, the judge in the Anthropic case ripped apart the proposed settlement in the class action lawsuit. When his reasoning came through, I saw echoes of\u00a0Jason Sanford\u2019s Genre Grapevine<\/a>. Sanford discussed how the settlement works off minimal definitions for which books to include in the class.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The class leaves some authors with an empty cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am personally one of those authors, holding traditionally published books in my hands that were never copyrighted by my publisher. (If you\u2019ve been wondering about copyright and how it works, you\u2019ll want to check out the latest piece by Victoria Strauss for\u00a0Writer Beware Presents,\u00a0Protecting Your Intellectual Property<\/a>, which covers the basics, the myths, the scams, and more.)<\/p>\n

Sanford and Strauss are concerned about copyright and liabilities, and so are we. The judge read those same tea leaves, and he\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that the settlement is being \u201cforced down the throat of authors.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is tough to swallow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I want to assure you that, at SFWA, we hear that complaint, that frustration, and that gross tea. We are meeting with our own counsel to discuss the gaps in the class definition, while also working on informing eligible class members about their eligibility. We don\u2019t want any authors to miss out on being compensated for the use of their work.<\/p>\n

While all this shakes out, we\u2019re also heading to Washington, D.C., where Isis and I will be meeting with congressional staff and lawmakers to discuss how these cases impact authors, in addition to other concerns such as book bans and the future of publishing.<\/p>\n

When we are there, we invite you to join us for\u00a0Tea in D.C.\u00a0this\u00a0Monday, September 15, from 5-6PM at Ebenezer\u2019s Coffeehouse, 201 F St NE, Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll pour your first cup. We\u2019ll chat about copyrights and claims. And importantly, we will talk about the work you are doing and how SFWA can help you!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a great weekend on the East Coast.\u00a0Make sure you check out the full lineup of\u00a0SFWA events<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Baltimore Book Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll leave the tea metaphor to steep for a bit and just say that this situation is complicated. We think your work never should have been stolen. We know this is impacting thousands of SFWA members. We want you to be paid for your work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, for now, make sure you\u00a0fill out the contact form<\/a>\u00a0if eligible for the class action,\u00a0and join us in D.C. if you can. Some tempests can\u2019t be contained in their teapots, but we\u2019re here for you in any storm.<\/p>\n

Keep writing \u2013 and we\u2019ll keep putting the kettle on.<\/p>\n

Kate Ristau<\/p>\n

SFWA President<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SFWA President Kate Ristau:Tasting Notes from Recent Advocacy, Education, and Outreach Some days, the publishing industry is like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-18841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}