Authors and other creators of intellectual property have the right to negotiate and receive fair payment for commercial use of the material they create. These points are self-evident to creators who, like other working people, rely on their labor to earn a living. Writers should be able to distribute their work at no cost if they so choose. Control over electronic distribution rights determines who decides when and for how much rights are to be sold to other parties. Payment terms determine how much the author receives for these rights.
Publishers often try to pressure writers into surrendering control for very poor terms.
Authors should negotiate vigorously. Whenever possible, authors should retain control over these rights and surrender them only in return for favorable payment terms. Also, authors have already begun to deal directly with online distributors who will handle electronic transfers. In the same vein, authors should define very specific terms and not surrender control of their rights to distributors in these transactions. When publishers buy the right to sell or distribute electronically individual copies of a work to individual consumers, they must pay the author a royalty for each copy sold rather than a flat fee for an unlimited distribution right.