$80K Settlement Reached Between Ebony Magazine and Freelance Contributors

When most people do a job, there’s a certain expectation that they will be compensated in a timely matter. In fact, many jobs today pay weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. However, for dozens of freelancers working for Chicago-based Ebony magazine, their paychecks never arrived. As a result of not being paid, many of the freelance contributors filed a lawsuit against the publication. Fortunately for them, Ebony magazine “has agreed to pay $80,000” to cover “unpaid work stretching back more than two years.”






Dam Bar Owner Wants to Settle Copyright Infringement Dispute with ASCAP

Elda Brandt, the owner of Dam Bar, recently made it known that she wants nothing more than to settle her “copyright infringement dispute with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a nonprofit performance rights organization.” For those who don’t know, the ASCAP filed a lawsuit against her in federal court “for playing unlicensed music.” So far she has been asked to pay “about $4,000 in licensing fees to ASCAP; Broadcast Music Inc., a music rights organization; and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, or SEASAC, also a performance rights organization.” To help defend herself against the complaints from ASCAP, Brandt said she plans on “hiring a Seattle lawyer to represent her.”