The lawsuit, brought by Jonathan Tasini, the president of the US
National Writers Union and other freelance writers against the New
York Times and other publishers, was the culmination of a seven
year court battle over authors’ rights in a digital age. The key
question was how to apply laws developed for paper resources to new
technologies. The court ruled 7-2 in favour of the writers.
In a statement, the chairman of the New York Times, Arthur
Sulzberger Jr, said: “Historians, scholars and the public lose
because of the holes in history created by the removal of these
articles from electronic issues of newspapers”. The New York Times
has said it will begin to delete all of the electronically archived
freelance material it stores that is covered by the scope of the
decision. However, most modern material will be unaffected by the
decision since publishers now routinely seek express permission to
publish works in multimedia.
Mr Tasini told news agency Reuters that the ruling was, “a huge
victory…we’re obviously very pleased. This has been a long fight
for the rights of all creators. Now the task is to have the media
industry sit down to negotiate a settlement”.
In UK law, the copyright position is very similar. If you have
consent to use a writer’s work in an off-line publication, it does
not follow that you have permission to reproduce the work on-line.
Accordingly, when commissioning work for any publication, it is
common to find a clause in the contract that allows reproduction in
other media.
