Case Study: Technology vs. Freelancers
As of Tuesday, the newspaper industry has one more thing to worry about.
On March 2, the Supreme Court decided to reopen a 2005 settlement between freelance writers, online databases and print companies. The case is a class action lawsuit from writers who felt mistreated when media giants, including the New York Times and Reuters, published their print content to online databases without permission or compensation. Authors, photographers and illustrators contracted for older print work that didn’t include internet use in their contract now want compensation for anything published online and sold through subscription based databases like LexisNexis.
The case, Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, was originally thrown out by a lower court in New York, saying these works were considered uncopyrighted. The Supreme Court overturned the decision, expanding the definition of copyrights and enabling an $18 million settlement. The recent reopening of the case won’t change the settlement but give them a chance to renegotiate in order to close gaps of information in electronic databases.
So what does all this mean? It’s big news for authors and artists, or anyone else who makes original content. It means that we can continue to create without worrying about losing the rights to our work with each batch of new technology. Now creatives can rest easy when looking at contracts and know we might still be protected, even if we don’t foresee future media’s impact on our work. In other words, it empowers individual freelancers, who normally have to bend to corporate publishers.
Honestly, no one will be able to use this case to predict new laws. Instead, it sets a precedent that copyrights are flexible. And fortunately for us, this time it helped the freelancers.
Kiersten
(Sidenote: I got this picture from Creative Commons, a great source for free works and licensing tools.)
Hi Kiersten:
I thought that I had commented earlier but apparently not. Sorry for the tardy response to your case. It’s a very interesting choice as it deals with the issue of copyright extending across different media. The real precedent is that copyrights carry over. I think this is a legitimate judgment. Who knows, we might see a similar case come up with the new generation of tablet devices. I think it also points out the need to have a thorough and professional contract if you work as a freelancer. Thanks for sharing this in class.
Grade – 5/5
That’s really interesting. I’m glad that the court is protecting property rights.