502
Opinion of the Court
collective work to which the author contributed or as part of any "revision" thereof.10
Invoking the concept of "media neutrality," the Publishers urge that the "transfer of a work between media" does not "alte[r] the character of" that work for copyright purposes. Brief for Petitioners 23. That is indeed true. See 17 U. S. C. § 102(a) (copyright protection subsists in original works "fixed in any tangible medium of expression"). But unlike the conversion of newsprint to microfilm, the transfer of articles to the Databases does not represent a mere conversion of intact periodicals (or revisions of periodicals) from one medium to another. The Databases offer users individual articles, not intact periodicals. In this case, media neutrality should protect the Authors' rights in the individual Articles to the extent those Articles are now presented individually, outside the collective work context, within the Databases' new media.11
For the purpose at hand—determining whether the Authors' copyrights have been infringed—an analogy to an
10 The Court of Appeals concluded NEXIS was infringing partly because that Database did "almost nothing to preserve the copyrightable aspects of the [Print] Publishers' collective works," i. e., their original "selection, coordination, and arrangement." 206 F. 3d 161, 168 (CA2 1999). We do not pass on this issue. It suffices to hold that the Databases do not contain "revisions" of the Print Publishers' works "as part of" which the Articles are reproduced and distributed.
11 The dissenting opinion apparently concludes that, under the banner of "media neutrality," a copy of a collective work, even when considerably changed, must constitute a "revision" of that collective work so long as the changes were "necessitated by the . . . medium." Post, at 514. We lack the dissent's confidence that the current form of the Databases is entirely attributable to the nature of the electronic media, rather than the nature of the economic market served by the Databases. In any case, we see no grounding in § 201(c) for a "medium-driven" necessity defense, post, at 514, n. 11, to the Authors' infringement claims. Furthermore, it bears reminder here and throughout that these Publishers and all others can protect their interests by private contractual arrangement.
Page: Index Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007