Supreme
Court Hands a Victory to Free-lance Writers in Copyright Case
In
a dispute involving the application of copyright law to the digital
age, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New York Times v. Tasini
that free-lance writers own the rights to their works that were
initially published in print editions and subsequently distributed
electronically. In the 7-2 opinion, the justices sided with the
freelancers in their battle to obtain compensation for their magazine
and newspaper articles that were published without their permission
as part of searchable electronic databases and on CD-ROMs.
The
publishers, including the New York Times and Time, Inc., argued
that the electronic versions of their periodicals constituted a
revision of the original work and therefore did not require explicit
permission from the authors.
Some
publishers, including the New York Times, have announced that rather
than seeking the additional permissions and paying additional royalties,
they will remove the articles from the databases. However, since
the early 1990s most publishing contracts have included language
seeking permission to reprint the articles in electronic formats
therefore many current articles will not be affected by the courts
decision.
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