Electronic Rights: Copyright Law & Collective Works: "Electronic Rights: Copyright Law & Collective Works
Copyright 2001 Lloyd L. Rich

Introduction

In 2001 three significant judicial decisions interpreted copyright law and publishing contracts as they related to electronic rights ('e-rights'). The decisions reached in The New York Times Co., Inc., et al. v. Jonathan Tasini, et. al., Greenberg v. National Geographic Society and Random House, Inc. v. Rosetta Books, LLC cases will all have an impact on publishers and authors as electronic publishing expands in the future. The decisions in these cases may provide the publishing industry with guidance in deciding some of the following e-rights issues: (1) What is a revision of a collective work? (2) Are e-rights granted implicitly by an author or must they be explicitly granted? (3) What is a book? and (4) Can a non-compete clause prevent an author from granting e-rights to someone other than the publisher of the author's printed book? "