New York Times Company, Inc. v. Tasini
150 L. Ed. 2d 500, 121 S. Ct. 2381 (2001)
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Rule of Law:
Under § 201(c) of the Copyright Act, a publisher who owns the copyright to a collective work is not privileged to reproduce and distribute an individual freelance author's contribution in an electronic database that presents the article as a standalone work, isolated from its original context, as this does not constitute a permissible 'revision' of the original collective work.
Facts:
- Between 1990 and 1993, six freelance authors, including Jonathan Tasini (the Authors), wrote 21 articles.
- The Authors sold these articles for publication in print periodicals owned by The New York Times Company, Newsday, Inc., and Time, Inc. (the Print Publishers).
- The Authors registered individual copyrights for each of their articles, while the Print Publishers registered copyrights for the collective works (the specific periodical editions).
- The contracts between the Authors and the Print Publishers did not grant the publishers express rights to include the articles in electronic databases.
- The Print Publishers entered into licensing agreements with electronic publishers, LEXIS/NEXIS and University Microfilms International (UMI), to include the full text of their periodicals in electronic databases.
- In these databases (NEXIS, NYTO, and GPO), the Authors' articles were stored and made retrievable as individual files, separate from the original publication's layout, formatting, advertisements, or other articles.
- Users of the databases could search for and retrieve individual articles based on criteria like author or subject, viewing them as isolated texts rather than as components of the original periodical edition.
Procedural Posture:
- The Authors sued the Print and Electronic Publishers for copyright infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
- On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court ruled in favor of the Publishers, holding that the databases were protected 'revisions' under § 201(c).
- The Authors, as appellants, appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
- The Second Circuit reversed the District Court's decision, granting summary judgment in favor of the Authors (appellees) and holding that the databases were not 'revisions'.
- The Publishers, as petitioners, were granted a writ of certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Issue:
Does a publisher infringe a freelance author's copyright in an individual article when, without the author's express permission, it authorizes the reproduction and distribution of that article in electronic databases where the article is retrievable as an individual work, separate from the context of the original collective work?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Ginsburg
Yes. A publisher infringes a freelance author's copyright by reproducing and distributing their article in an electronic database where it is presented individually and out of context. The Copyright Act, § 201(c), grants publishers a privilege to reproduce an author's contribution only 'as part of' the original collective work, a 'revision' of that work, or a later work in the same series. The electronic databases at issue do not qualify as 'revisions' because they present articles to the user as discrete, isolated works, stripped of the context and arrangement of the original print publication. Unlike microfilm, which is a direct facsimile of the original pages, these databases disaggregate the content into a new anthology of individual articles. Therefore, this new use falls outside the publisher's limited privilege and infringes upon the exclusive rights retained by the freelance author.
Dissenting - Justice Stevens
No. The inclusion of the articles in the electronic databases constitutes a permissible 'revision' of the collective work under § 201(c). The changes made to the articles, such as converting them to text-only files, were necessary adaptations for the new electronic medium, consistent with the principle of media neutrality. The databases preserve the publisher's essential creative contribution—the selection of articles—and the identifying information for each article maintains its connection to the original collective work. Aggregating these revisions into a larger database does not strip them of their status, much like placing a microfilmed newspaper on a library shelf with others does not. The majority's holding unnecessarily subverts the public interest in comprehensive, accessible archives and will likely harm the historical record without providing significant prospective benefit to authors.
Analysis:
This decision significantly strengthened the copyright protections for freelance authors in the digital age, clarifying that the § 201(c) privilege for 'revisions' is narrow and context-dependent. It established that publishers cannot unilaterally repurpose content for new media formats that fundamentally alter how the work is presented and consumed. As a result, the ruling changed industry standards, compelling publishers to explicitly negotiate for and acquire electronic rights from freelancers in their contracts. The case underscores the ongoing tension in copyright law between protecting the rights of individual creators and facilitating the creation of broad, publicly accessible digital archives of information.
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