## Facts

- Freelance authors wrote articles for periodicals published by The New York Times Co., Newsday, and Time Inc. as independent contractors.
- The authors’ agreements did not grant consent for electronic database distribution of their articles.
- The publishers licensed content to electronic services, including:
  - NEXIS (LEXIS/NEXIS), a text-only database that lets users retrieve individual articles searchable by fields such as author and subject; articles appear separately without surrounding issue content or original page layout.
  - UMI CD-ROM products, including a text-only product similar to NEXIS and an image-based product reproducing certain periodical issues as printed, with photos, captions, advertisements, and surrounding materials.
- The authors sued the publishers and database providers for copyright infringement based on electronic redistribution without authorization.
- The publishers relied on 17 U.S.C. § 201(c), arguing the database uses were permitted “revisions” of the original collective works.

## Issues

1. Whether 17 U.S.C. § 201(c) authorizes publishers to reproduce and distribute freelancers’ articles in electronic databases without permission as “part of” a “revision” of the original collective work.
2. Whether databases that present articles individually, detached from original issue context, fall within § 201(c)’s privilege for collective-work owners.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for the authors, holding (7–2) that § 201(c) did not authorize the copying at issue.
- The Court concluded that the electronic databases reproduced and distributed freelance articles “standing alone and not in context,” rather than “as part of” the original periodical, a qualifying revision, or a later collective work in the same series.
- Because the database uses exceeded § 201(c)’s limited privilege, the publishers and electronic distributors infringed the authors’ copyrights.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright in each contribution to a collective work is distinct from the collective work and initially vests in the contribution’s author.
- Section 201(c) grants the collective-work owner only a limited privilege to reproduce and distribute a contribution as part of: (i) that particular collective work, (ii) any revision of it, or (iii) any later collective work in the same series.
- A use that extracts and disseminates contributions as individual, searchable items—without the original issue context—falls outside § 201(c)’s privilege.
- The scope of § 201(c) turns on whether the contribution is reproduced in the context of the collective work (or a qualifying revision), not merely whether the same text is republished in a new medium.

## Conclusion

The Court held that § 201(c) does not permit publishers to authorize electronic databases to distribute freelance articles as stand-alone works without the authors’ consent, because such database presentation is not reproduction “as part of” the original periodical or a statutory “revision” of it.


New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001)