Cite as: 533 U. S. 483 (2001)
Stevens, J., dissenting
tions that are blended together in the Court's discussion of revisions. The first is whether the electronic versions of the collective works created by the owners of the copyright in those works (Print Publishers or publishers) are "revision[s]" of those works within the meaning of 17 U. S. C. § 201(c). In my judgment they definitely are. The second is whether the aggregation by LEXIS/NEXIS and UMI (Electronic Databases) of the revisions with other editions of the same periodical or with other periodicals within a single database changes the equation. I think it does not. Finally, I will consider the implications of broader copyright policy for the issues presented in this case.
I
As the majority correctly observes, prior to 1976, an author's decision to publish her individual article as part of a collective work was a perilous one. Although pre-1976 copyright law recognized the author's copyright in an individual article that was included within a collective work, those rights could be lost if the publisher refused to print the article with a copyright notice in the author's name. 3 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 10.01[C][2], p. 10-12 (2000).
This harsh rule was, from the author's point of view, exacerbated by the pre-1976 doctrine of copyright "indivisibility," which prevented an author from assigning only limited publication rights to the publisher of a collective work while holding back all other rights to herself.1 Ibid. The indivisibility of copyright, in combination with the danger of losing copyright protection, put significant pressure on an author seeking to preserve her copyright in the contribution to
1 Contractual attempts to assign such limited rights were deemed by courts to create mere licenses, such that the failure to accompany the article with an individual copyright in the author's name allowed the article to pass into the public domain. See 3 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Copyright § 10.01[A], p. 10-5; § 10.01[C][2], p. 10-12 (2000).
507
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