Bringing Old Content to a New Medium
By Bret A. Fausett
David S. Whitford is a freelance author. Between 1990 and 1992, when the Internet was primarily an academic tool, Mr. Whitford contributed several articles to The New York Times, Newsday, and Sports Illustrated. Each of his articles appeared, as he certainly had hoped and expected, in the print editions of those publications. And if that were the only place his articles had ever appeared, I wouldn't be writing this column.
However, Mr. Whitford's articles also appeared in a proprietary online service called Lexis-Nexis, as well as the University Microfilm, Inc. (UMI) product "The New York Times OnDisc," a CD-ROM compilation of back issues of The New York Times. With each of the Whitford articles, the original publisher had licensed its right in the articles to an online or electronic distributor and recouped a licensing fee in return.
While these new media licensing deals provided yet another outlet for his work, and certainly let the articles reach a wider audience over a longer period of time, Mr. Whitford wasn't amused. He had contributed his articles for print publication only. These secondary publications—both in online and CD-ROM format—he argued, were a violation of his copyright.
So in 1993, with five like-minded authors who had contributed to the same publications and whose work had suffered a similar fate, Mr.
