The Creators Federation's policy agenda will have domestic and international components.

Domestic: at the federal and state level, the Federation is developing a comprehensive, sustained policy agenda touching creators’ lives—contract rights, copyright, tax issues, health care and pension. For example, bargaining rights. Hundreds of thousands of writers, graphic artists, photographers, fine artists and other creators in the United States make their living by providing creative works on a "freelance" basis. These persons do not enjoy a traditional "employer/employee" relationship with any single purchaser of their services. Apart from a handful of "superstars" in these fields, the vast majority of these freelancers are compensated very modestly, and many work only on a sporadic or part-time basis.

Faced with the reality of these episodic engagements, and the widely differing terms of such engagements, freelancer writers and artists of various kinds have joined together into organizations for the purpose of sharing information and strategies for dealing with the entities that purchase their talents. But the ability of freelancers to join together to deal with these purchasers is significantly limited by antitrust law. Antitrust law has come to embody an artificial distinction between "employees" (who enjoy broad protection from antitrust liability when they join together to deal with their employers) and "independent contractors" (for whom the very act of joining together to deal with the purchasers of their labors may be viewed as a violation of antitrust law).

Goal: promote a public policy for passage of anti-trust exemption for freelance creators.


International: creators’ rights are increasingly determined by legal developments around the world, principally within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Yet, creators have little presence at WIPO. Creators need to build relationships with negotiators. For example, creators in the U.S. need relationships with governments and non-governmental bodies of the European Union.

Using the existing resources within its constituent organizations (for example, legal and policy staff), the Federation will track the progress of proposals being discussed by WIPO and other international bodies, and develop a coordinated strategy for advocating the views of U.S. creators before such bodies.

Please feel free to e-mail us your thoughts at: projects@creatorsfederation.org