Re: Tasini: was RE: Do you still keep subscription of microfilms of New York Times and Wall Street J. ? Belvadi, Melissa 15 Nov 2006 16:02 UTC
I was under the impression that immediately after the Tasini decision, or even a few years before it, the newspapers all changed their standard contract with freelancers to include rights to republish in databases, so that the only content affected would be the older content under the earlier versions of the contracts. If anyone has more specific information about this, that would be very helpful. If my impression is true, Tasini would not affect decisions to cancel forward-going microfilm subscriptions, but only the decision to retain your microfilm archives. Of course, there is other content in the newspapers that has never been in the databases, such as obituaries, advertisements, classified, stock tables, etc. that may have value for some researchers. We at Maryville continue our microfilm for the NYT and WSJ for that reason, even though we have the full text of both (NYT via LexisNexis Academic, WSJ via Proquest). Melissa Belvadi Systems and Services Librarian Maryville University Library 650 Maryville University Drive, St. Louis, MO 63141 mbelvadi@maryville.edu 314-529-9531 Fax: 314-529-9941 -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Anne P. Benham Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 3:29 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Do you still keep subscription of microfilms of New York Times and Wall Street J. ? The reason that online newspaper databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Proquest Historical Newspapers lack some images and content that are still available in the microfilm of the New York Times has to do with the Supreme Court Tasini Decision which ruled that publishers who allow works by freelance employees to be included in online databases would be guilty of violating the copyright of the freelancers. [See comments of Richard Wiggins (excerpted below) at http://www.llrx.com/features/tasini.htm] "The National Writers Union and its supporters enjoyed a brief period of euphoria after the Supreme Court ruled in the case of New York Times Co. v. Tasini. Tasini et al hoped that through litigation they could win retrospective payments for freelancers who had written for the Times and various other publishers. But the euphoria was fleeting: the Times, having learned that their use of freelancers' works in online databases such as LexisNexis violated the copyright of the authors, ordered databases to remove the freelancers' works from the archives." Anne Benham Alderman Library University of Virginia apb4n@virginia.edu