It’s real now. California writers are losing work because of AB-5, which outlaws or restricts many kinds of freelance work. WriterAccess has sent an email to its California writers, which tells them:

• They’re capped at 35 orders or projects for any one customer. There’s no size limit to a project, but it all has to be under one title.
• All California writers must register as a business with the state and get an EIN for tax filing.
• California writers will have to submit a revised business agreement with WriterAccess to ensure compliance with the new requirements.

To its credit, WriterAccess is trying to keep its California writers and give them as much leeway as it can. Other platforms are simply dropping California-based writers because they’re too much trouble.

I’m focusing on writers on this blog because it’s a blog about writing. Many other professionals are being screwed. The National Press Photographers Association is suing because of similar damage to their profession. The 35-submission limit may be even more onerous for them, if a picture counts as one submission. According to the NPAA, independent video journalists don’t even get the 35-submission safe harbor, and the state has effectively outlawed their profession.

The article makes a point which I hadn’t thought of before. When you’re an employee, the usual rule is that everything you create while working belongs to your employer. This means that writers and photographers who accept employee status assign the copyright to all their work to the employer unless there’s an explicit agreement to the contrary.

Other groups, such as musicians and truckers, are being hit similarly.

The trouble with the opposition is that so many people aren’t fighting it on principle. Rather, they’re saying, “This law shouldn’t apply to us! In particular, they’re fine with having the restriction imposed on Uber and Lyft drivers. I think this is because people stereotype the drivers as people with foreign accents and brown skins and think they need special protection because of their ignorance of American practices.

The main purpose of the law is to increase tax revenues. Employees face tighter reporting requirements than independent businesses, so less money will slip through the government’s fingers. In other cases, established lobbies such as the taxi industry benefit. The law doesn’t improve the lot of the people it forces out of business, and it wasn’t intended to.

If you say “AB-5 is great, but I don’t want it to apply to me!” then you deserve whatever it does to you.