High Court Action
Nov. 6 <br> -- Freelancers to Have Day in Court Labor Dispute Reaches High Court Court Passes on Multiple Defendant Case Court Stays Out of Cellular Dispute
Court to Decide Copyright Case
Taking on an Internet-age dispute, the SupremeCourt agreed today to decide whether The New York Times and otherpublications violate freelance contributors’ copyrights by puttingtheir articles in electronic databases.
The court said it will hear arguments by the Times, Newsday,Time Inc. and two database companies that they can put freelancearticles—already published in their print editions — in onlineand CD-ROM databases without separate permission from the authors.
The authors contend the newspapers and magazine paid for theright to publish the articles in their printed versions, but thatthey did not have the right to republish them electronically.
The companies said a lower court ruling in the authors’ favor“sets a national rule requiring the destruction of decades’ worthof articles” stored in electronic archives.
The lawsuit was filed in New York by six freelance authors whosold articles to the Times, the Long Island newspaper Newsday, andSports Illustrated between 1990 and 1993. Sports Illustrated ispublished by Time Inc. Also named in the lawsuit were theelectronic database companies Lexis/Nexis and UniversityMicrofilms.
The lawsuit said those companies violated the authors’copyrights in their articles by republishing them in onlinedatabases or CD-ROMs.
The federal Copyright Act says newspapers and magazines canrepublish such articles in a “revision” of the originalpublication.
The Times and other companies said the electronic versions werea “revision” of the original newspaper or magazine, and thereforethey did not need separate permission from the authors to put thearticles in their databases.
A federal judge agreed with the companies. But the 2nd U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in September 1999 and ruled forthe authors. The court said publications cannot put freelancearticles in online databases without specific permission from theauthors.
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