NPPA Receives Authors Coalition Of America Funds

 

DURHAM, NC (August 19, 2009) – The National Press Photographers Association announced today that it has received its first distribution of funds as a result of being recently accepted as a member of the Authors Coalition of America (ACA). 

NPPA executive director Jim Straight said NPPA received $184,000 from ACA that is to be used to benefit still photographers, members and non-members alike, and that the money comes with specific ACA restrictions about how it can and cannot allocate the funds. The funds are ear marked for still photographers, and not video, Straight said, because "these are [ACA] royalties on photocopies."

The Authors Coalition of America LLC is an association of twenty independent authors' organizations representing 120,000 text writers, songwriters, visual artists, illustrators, and photographers. The Coalition was incorporated in 1994 for the purpose of repatriating and distributing the creator's share of foreign non-title specific royalty payments for American works photocopied abroad. NPPA joined ACA in December 2008.

"The first mandate is that NPPA is to use these funds to benefit all the rights holders within our class of photographers, not just NPPA members," Straight said. "The second is that these funds may not be applied to administrative or operating expenses except for any costs specifically incurred in distributing the funds. Some examples of appropriate uses of the ACA funds include advocacy work and educational initiatives."

“Being new to this coalition we had no idea what to expect," Straight said. "Now that we know the scope of the funds we'll be receiving, we can begin to plan what to do with them. We really want to be good stewards of this money. I can see right away that we will be adding to the beneficial advocacy work we are currently doing. That seems to be the most natural fit. I would also like to see some new educational opportunities come out of these funds.”

Straight said NPPA has responded to the news by forming a task force to begin the decision and planning process on how the organization can most responsibly use the ACA funds to benefit editorial photographers.

For more information on the ACA visit www.authorscoalition.org.

 

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