Abstract
On June 28 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Tasini vs New York Times Co. Jonathan Tasini and other free lance authors had sued the NY Times and other database and content providers for non-payment of royalties for articles included in electronic databases. The Court rules in favor of Tasini. The full decision is at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/ 7/257/2422/ 28jun20011200/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinio ns/00pdf/00-201.pdf The Court ruled that the NY Times and the others had infringed the copyrights of the authors. The New York Times immediately reacted by stating that it would remove the freelancers’ articles from its products. Lexis Nexis stated that they would ask Congress to change the law. Tasini and the National Writer’s Union wanted to negotiate royalty payments, but claimed that the publishers had declined to negotiate. A long story on this complex issue is at http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb0106 28-1.htm. There were later reports that the Times had ‘blacklisted’ freelancers who participated in the suit. GaleGroup, ProQuest, and other database providers issued statements, available on their Web pages, urging calm. “Our hope is the contributions of freelance writers and authors will not be deleted from the information pools we aggregate into our online services. We would prefer to see a settlement between publishers and freelancers that will enable freelance work to remain accessible though our databases,” wrote Alan Pascual of GaleGroup, for example.
Highlights
On June 28 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Tasini vs New York Times Co
Jonathan Tasini and other free lance authors had sued the NY Times and other database and content providers for non-payment of royalties for articles included in electronic databases
The Court ruled that the NY Times and the others had infringed the copyrights of the authors
Summary
On June 28 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Tasini vs New York Times Co. Jonathan Tasini and other free lance authors had sued the NY Times and other database and content providers for non-payment of royalties for articles included in electronic databases. GaleGroup announced, on September 17, an initiative called the ‘Digital Archive Program’, aimed at “[allowing] libraries to purchase, rather than lease, electronic archives of such classic Gale content as Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, the Biography Resource Center and Literature Resource Center.”. More information on this new product is available at http://www.galegroup.com/news_bur/ pressroo m/sep01_digital.htm GaleGroup announced, on September 17, an initiative called the ‘Digital Archive Program’, aimed at “[allowing] libraries to purchase, rather than lease, electronic archives of such classic Gale content as Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, the Biography Resource Center and Literature Resource Center.” More information on this new product is available at http://www.galegroup.com/news_bur/ pressroo m/sep01_digital.htm
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