April 22, 2003

Richard Parsons, CEO
AOL Time Warner
75 Rockefeller Plaza, 29th Floor
New York, NY 10019

Ann S. Moore, Chairman and CEO
Time Inc.
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020


Dear Mr. Parsons and Ms. Moore,

We write to express our objection to AOL Time Warner’s use of work-for-hire contracts enforced upon its freelance contributors, writers and artists, who provide content for your magazines and other media products.

A fundamental principle in establishing the value of creative work is that the compensation must match how the work is to be used. Work-for-hire agreements circumvent this, taking not only the rights AOL Time Warner needs, but also all rights of authorship to the creative work. This strips your contributors of any future financial rewards from their own creations, violating the principle of copyright established in the US Constitution.

The dictate by AOL Time Warner for contributors to sign these contracts or lose any prospect of working for such a large media conglomerate is coercive in the extreme, and worthy of public outrage.

The Graphic Artists Guild (UAW local 3030) supports the position of the National Writers Union (UAW local 1981) and the City Council of New York in opposing your work-for-hire contracts, and will encourage its members, and those of our allied organizations, to resist such demands. We encourage AOL Time Warner to work with the organizations representing the creative community to develop contracts that respect the economic interests of individual creators, upon whom the success of your company relies.

Sincerely,


Lloyd Dangle
President
Graphic Artists Guild/ UAW local 3030
Cc: executive committee