Take note, fellow freelancers!

...Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review photographer Jerry Greenberg's appeal (okay, the legalese is "denied the appeal") in his 11-year-long case against National Geographic for including 60 photos of his work in "The Complete National Geographic," a 30-disc CD-ROM compilation.

The Supreme Court denied Greenberg's petition for a writ of certiorari on Monday, which lets stand the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision from July holding that the National Geographic Society – and by extension, other publishers – have the right to reproduce their magazines' archive in digital format without paying any additional royalties to freelance photographers.

Mickey H. Osterreicher, legal counsel for The National Press Photographer's Association, assessed the situation for freelancers:

"In these terrible economic times it will now allow publishers to create and sell electronic archives of their previously published works without infringing on the copyrights of the contributors to those works. This creates a terrible burden on the ability of photographers to earn a living.”

“It will now be imperative for photographers, authors, artists, and creators to be aware of this
decision as they negotiate for the use of their work and make sure that any contract that they agree to clearly delineate those rights and limitations."

This appears to weaken the 2001 ruling in New York Times Co., Inc. v. Tasini, a case decided in favor of the authors over electronic rights.

Read the full story on this latest blow to freelancers here, and more about the history here and here>.

AP double standard

Trouble started last week when Rogers Cadenhead, proprietor of the Drudge Retort (not to be confused with the more well-known Drudge Report), posted on Friday that the AP had sent him not one, but seven take-down notices for article citations on AP news stories.

Yet the AP was caught Monday lifting entire sections for a story published June 16th but which first appeared on the blog Patterico's Pontifications. I checked the article and noticed the AP reporter gave credit to the blog, but the question remains: how much of a story can be used and still be considered "Fair Use"? And of course, the glaring irony also stands--the AP's heavy-handed stance against bloggers quoting from AP articles while the AP lifts larger sections from, well, bloggers.

The Los Angeles Times confirmed on Monday that the AP, in an attempt to quell the backlash from the blogosphere on this ironic twist in violation of copyright standards, said it will "sit down with representatives of a bloggers group Thursday to devise guidelines allowing Internet commentators to use excerpts from AP stories and broadcasts."

The New York Times put it this way: "The A.P.’s effort to impose . . . guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of “fair use . . . .”

My mother always said to be careful when pointing the finger at someone--three fingers point back at you.

JK Rowling sues publisher

News in the publishing world about authors and Web site creators always concerns me. Here's a summary of the story appearing today at CNN.com:

"In papers filed for a lawsuit in Manhattan, J.K. Rowling says she feels betrayed by a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for his role in trying to publish an unauthorized reference work, Harry Potter Lexicon.

"Vander Ark is editor of a Web site containing a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who's who in the wizarding world."

At first (and setting aside the debate over the Harry Potter series), I thought J.K. Rowling has made enough money. She's the first billionaire author in the world. She shouldn't hurt this poor guy from making some money too.

But then I decided, he's not creating something original himself. He's creating something based on Rowling's original work.

Hmm. I'm concerned about derivative rights, which are reserved and protected for the author under copyright law. Here's what the law says:

"Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work."

He argues that his Web site is the only fan-based site for which Rowling has shown support, although "unofficial," since they do not have any sort of correspondence or written agreement. Thus, her friendly toleration of his fan site may jeopardize her defense since it could be argued she indirectly authorized him to create a new version of her work--the Web site, and now, the compilation. It seems he has a plausible argument.

However, I believe that a fan Web site built for fun is different than publishing a book for profit as Vander Ark is attempting to do, and therefore infringes on Rowling's derivative rights in her work.

What do you think?