Writers taken to Supreme Court over web publication rights

Six freelance writers brought the original case, arguing that they are entitled to part of the fees that the publishers charge consumers for downloading their articles. The writers are complaining that where web sites pay publishers for material and then offer it for downloading upon payment by site visitors, the writers should receive a royalty. They say that offering their work in this way amounts to copyright infringement because they never signed away the rights in their work.

The publishers are appealing an appeals court case that says they must compensate the freelancers unless they have express permission to use the work in the databases. The companies will argue before the Supreme Court that if the freelancers have their way, they would be forced to remove tens of thousands of freelance articles from their databases and CD-ROMs. They argue that the appeals court’s decision “threatens to degrade this valuable public resource immediately and severely.”

The publishers are seeking to rely on a provision of US copyright law that lets a newspaper or magazine republish an article if it is a “revision” of the original publication. They argue that electronic versions should be considered such revisions.

The writers in the present case are arguing over rights to articles written between 1990 and 1993. The standard practice today for publishers entering into contracts with freelancers is to require the writer to give the publisher the rights to both print editions and electronic versions of the works.