Re: Ruling on Tasini Case

["David Mirchin" <DMirchin@Silverplatter.com>]

Jennifer,

Your assumption is not correct.  This ruling DOES extend to scholars,
authors of monographs and anyone else who writes, whether or not they SELL
their works.

The basic structure of copyright law is that:

1. The author owns their work.

2. The author can assign one or more rights in their work, whether for
money or some other benefit (like wide distribution or your article by a
publisher.)

The ruling in Tasini applies just as much to scholars who gives rights to
a publisher to print their works in a journal, whether or not the
scholar/author receives any money in return.

David Mirchin
Vice President & General Counsel
SilverPlatter Information, Inc.
100 River Ridge Drive
Norwood, MA  02062  USA
dmirchin@silverplatter.com
Tel: +1-781-769-2599, x235
Fax: +1-781-769-8763

Adjunct Professor, Internet Law
Boston College Law School
http://www2.bc.edu/~mirchin/



"De Beer, Jennifer" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> A cursory reading of the NY Times article posted earlier to this list
> suggests that only freelancers that _sell_ their works to publishers are
> affected by this ruling. "...the Supreme Court said free-lance writers may
> control whether articles they sold for print in a regular newspaper or
> magazine may be reproduced in electronic form."
> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Free-Lance.html?ex=994485
> 244&ei=1&en=56d5cb000908ea72 Scholars, who tend to not receive
> remuneration for journal articles submitted, are by that act entering into
> a different type of contract. I imagine one would need to read the exact
> wording of the court ruling e.g. their definition of 'freelancer' or
> 'regular newspaper or magazine' to clarify matters. But my guess is that
> the ruling would not extend to scholars, authors of monographs, and such.
> What makes the matter "major news" would be that it sets a precedent for
> others to argue their respective cases.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jennifer De Beer