National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom President Obama named as his nominee for the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning, has a background in intellectual property litigation -- as an associate and partner at the Manhattan law firm Pavia & Harcourt and as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. As a district court judge in 1997, Sotomayor heard a case brought by a group of freelance journalists who claimed various news outlets including the New York Times and Time Inc. violated copyright laws by reproducing their work on electronic databases and archives such as Lexis-Nexis without first obtaining their permission. Sotomayor ruled against the freelancers, arguing that the publishers were within their rights under the Copyright Act.
The appeals court reversed Sotomayor's decision, siding with the freelancers, and the Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling 7-2. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer dissented, siding with Sotomayor's position. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority's opinion, saying: "If there is demand for a freelance article standing alone or in a new collection, the Copyright Act allows the freelancer to benefit from that demand; after authorizing initial publication, the freelancer may also sell the article to others. It would scarcely "preserve the author's copyright in a contribution" as contemplated by Congress... if a newspaper or magazine publisher were permitted to reproduce or distribute copies of the author's contribution in isolation or within new collective works."
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
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