英美法專題
期中報告
班
級：財法碩一甲
學
號：MA4X0202
姓
名：林武賢(調至晚上班上課)
指導老師：許舜喨 老師
NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, INC., ET AL. v.
JONATHAN TASINI, ET AL.
No. 00-201
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
533 U.S. 483; 121 S. Ct. 2381; 150 L. Ed. 2d 500; 2001 U.S.
SUMMARY: Between 1990 and 1993, six freelance authors contributed articles in
which they had registered copyrights to periodicals published by print publishers.
Under agreements with the print publishers, but without the freelancers' consent,
electronic publishers copied the articles appearing in the periodicals, including the
freelancers' articles, into computer databases that contained thousands or millions of
files with individual articles from thousands of collective works, either in one series
or in scores of series. Users of the databases, which resided either on CD-ROMs or on
the electronic publisher's central discs, could search for articles by author, subject,
date, publication, headline, key term, words in text, or other criteria, or, in the case of
the CD-ROMs, by means of an index. Whether written by a freelancer or periodical
staff member, each article was presented to, and retrievable by, a database user in
isolation, clear of the context the original print publication presented, although in one
of the CD-ROM products--which was image-based rather text-based--an article
appeared with the other materials published on the same page or pages, but without
any material published on other pages of the original periodical. In 1993, the
freelancers filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York, alleging that their copyrights were infringed when, as permitted
and facilitated by the print publishers, the electronic publishers placed their articles in
the databases. The District Court granted summary judgment for the publishers,
holding that 17 USCS 201(c) shielded the database reproductions, as (1) the privilege
conferred upon owners of copyrights in collective works by 201(c) was conveyed
from the print publishers to the electronic publishers, and (2) the databases reproduced
the freelancers' works as part of a revision of a collective work (972 F Supp 804). The
freelancers appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
reversed, granting summary judgment for the freelancers on the ground that the
databases (1) were not among the collective works covered by 201(c), and specifically
(2) were not revisions of the periodicals in which the articles first appeared (206 F3d
161).
Fact: Petitioners, print and electronic publishers, challenged the judgment of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that they infringed the
copyrights of respondent freelance authors by placing authors' articles in electronic
databases. Publishers asserted they were protected by the reproduction and
distribution privilege accorded collective work copyright owners by 17 U.S.C.S. §
201(c)
Issue: The Supreme Court held that the databases reproduced and distributed articles
standing alone and not in context, not as part of the collective work to which the
author contributed, or as part of any revision thereof, or as part of any later collective
work in the same series under § 201(c). The authors had registered the copyrights for
each article, while the print publishers registered collective work copyrights in each
periodical edition in which an article originally appeared. The electronic publishers'
databases did not reproduce and distribute the articles as part of either the original
edition or a revision of that edition. An article's mark of origin did not mean the article
was reproduced or distributed as part of the periodical. Unlike microforms, the
databases did not reproduce articles as part of the collective work or as part of any
revision. Media neutrality protected authors' rights to the extent the articles were
presented individually within the databases. The storage and retrieval systems
effectively overrode authors' exclusive rights. The electronic publishers were not
selling equipment; they sold copies of the articles.
Holding: The judgment of the court of appeals was affirmed.( Reproduction of
freelance authors' magazine and newspaper articles in computer databases, without
authors' permission, held to infringe authors' copyrights and not to be privileged under
17 USCS 201(c).)
Rationale: They contend, however, that reproduction and distribution of each Article
by the Databases lie within the "privilege of reproducing and distributing the [Articles]
as part of . . . [a] revision of that collective work," § 201(c). The Publishers'
encompassing construction of the § 201(c) privilege is unacceptable, we conclude, for
it would diminish the Authors' exclusive rights in the Articles.
But the markings do not mean the article is currently reproduced or distributed as
part of the periodical. The Databases' reproduction and distribution of individual
Articles -- simply as [*501] individual Articles -- would invade the core of the
Authors' exclusive rights under § 106. 9
We conclude that the Electronic Publishers infringed the Authors' copyrights by
reproducing and distributing the Articles in a manner not authorized by the Authors
and not privileged by § 201(c). We further conclude that the Print Publishers infringed
the Authors' copyrights by authorizing the Electronic Publishers to place the Articles
in the Databases and by aiding the Electronic Publishers in that endeavor. We
therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.