Good News: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal regarding the freelance class-action settlement with electronic database companies. At issue in this appeal is whether federal courts have jurisdiction over lawsuits involving unregistered works, reported the Associated Press Monday, March 2, 2009.

This could mean that the settlement agreement originally reached in 2005 will be upheld. The settlement of Tasini v. The New York Times, valued at up to $18 million, would resolve all copyright infringement claims for registered and unregistered works--of freelance writers against database companies that had made digital use of the writers' works without permission.

After the plaintiffs and defendants arrived at a settlement in 2005, which the Southern District Court of New York approved, a group of freelance writers who thought it unfairly distributed settlement awards filed an appeal.

The Authors' Guild describes the details of the legal actions that followed:

"On November 29, 2007, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's approval of the settlement. The appellate court ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction over claims relating to unregistered freelance articles. Copyright registration is required to bring a suit for infringement, but since registration is viewed as a formality (comparable, many of us believe, to the requirement that one file a complaint in order to get into court), lawyers on both sides thought the settlement could resolve infringement claims for both registered and unregistered works.

"In January 2008, we filed a motion to ask that all of the 2nd Circuit judges rehear our appeal. That motion was denied. In August 2008, class counsel filed a motion for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case in order to decide the following question: 'Does 17 USC 411(a) restrict the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts over copyright infringement actions?' The case is Reed Elvesier, et al., v. Muchnick, et al. (08-203)." (Note: The misspelling of "Elsevier" is from the court's docket.)

The class-action lawsuit filed by freelances was championed by the Authors Guild and ASJA. We owe a deep debt of gratitude--regardless of the outcome--to those who have worked hard and long on our behalf. Thousands of hours of volunteer labor were contributed by our own Jim Morrison, ASJA past president. Jim Morrison worked with Paul Aiken, AG executive director, and with lawyers representing authors, writers, publishers and database companies to fashion the settlement.

For more information about the pending suit:

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For a little history on the suit:

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We will post more information as it becomes available.