Copyright debate often sets up a polarity between rightsholders and rightsusers. Creators, perhaps more than most people, have a foot in both camps, and they constantly deal with producers and publishers who are themselves users of their work.

Media corporations that seek to assert their own copyrights while appropriating creators’ rights have soured a lot of creators on copyright in general, not without cause. But lots of creators still believe they need to be rewarded for the value of the work they provide.

One new wrinkle on that: an effort to launch a Canadian Freelance Union in association with the CEP, one of Canada’s major media unions, to extend collective bargaining to freelancers as well as staff writers, in order to give self-employed writers improved clout, including on copyright matters.

Follow up at www.cep.ca/freelance .