MAY
2001
2001
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MAY
2001 |
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UAW Local 1981 members fight copyright infringement Story by Jennifer John
In simple terms, it’s all about writers having a right to make a
living from their work. But in the case of Tasini v. The New York Times,
things are anything but simple. Tasini, the lead plaintiff in the case, is Jonathan Tasini, president of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. The question is whether publishers violated U.S. copyright law by putting a free-lance writer’s work originally published in print form online or otherwise reusing or reselling it without permission and further compensation. In a 1999 landmark appeals court decision, judges ruled that it was copyright infringement to do just that. On March 28, the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices heard oral arguments by publishers, which include Newsday, Time Inc., Lexis-Nexus, and The New York Times, among others. The court is expected to rule in early summer. If the high court upholds the 1999 ruling, publishers will be vulnerable to potentially huge liability for past and current copyright infringement. Tasini is confident that the Supreme Court will rule in the writers’ favor. “By all accounts, it’s hard to see where the court will get their five votes against us,” Tasini said of the nine justices, who need a five-vote majority. “We’re sure the Supreme Court will support the appeals court ruling that was fair and clear in upholding the constitutional principle of copyright as a tool to protect individual authors.” Tasini said he was “startled” that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia appeared to be the writers’ best advocate. But he said that Scalia, a writer himself, understood the real issue. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor also agreed with Scalia that U.S. copyright law supported the writers. Laurence Gold, the attorney representing six free-lance writers who initially sued the publishers for copyright infringement in 1993, told the court that in creating an electronic data base, “you are putting articles into an undifferentiated mass, and in that sense you are creating a quite different work.” Writers are not seeking to shut down the Internet or other information sources. It’s simple business: Writers simply want their fair share of the profits. As a solution to this kind of copyright infringement, the NWU founded the Publication Rights Clearinghouse, a licensing system for free-lance writers. Similar to BMI and ASCAP that facilitate royalty payments to songwriters and musicians, the PRC ensures that companies have the legal right to use a writer’s work and that the writer is fairly compensated for this use. The NWU, which has 6,500 members nationwide and represents journalists, book authors, technical writers and poets, affiliated with the UAW in 1991. . |
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