518
Stevens, J., dissenting
our hypothetical electronic revision of the October 31, 2000, New York Times within a larger electronic database does nothing to alter either the nature of our original electronic revision or the relationship between that revision and the individual articles that exist as "part of" it.
Finally, the mere fact that an individual user may either view or print copies of individual articles stored on the Electronic Databases does not change the nature of the revisions contained within those databases. The same media-specific necessities that allow the publishers to store and make available the original collective work as a collection of individual digital files make it reasonable for the Electronic Databases to enable the user to download or print only those files in which the user has a particular interest. But this is no different from microfilm. Just as nothing intrinsic in the nature of microfilm dictates to a user how much or how little of a microform edition of the New York Times she must copy, nothing intrinsic in the Electronic Databases dictates to a user how much (or how little) of a particular edition of the New York Times to view or print. It is up to the user in each instance to decide whether to employ the publisher's product in a manner that infringes either the publisher's or the author's copyright. And to the extent that the user's decision to make a copy of a particular article violates the author's copyright in that article, such infringing third-party behavior should not be attributed to the database.14 See
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 434 (1984).
IV
My reading of "revision," as encompassing products like the Electronic Databases, is not the only possible answer to
14 The majority finds that NEXIS infringes by "cop[ying]" and "distribut[ing]" copies of respondents' articles to the public. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that NEXIS makes it possible for users to make and distribute copies. In any event, the Court has wisely declined to reach the question whether the Electronic Databases publicly "display" the articles within the meaning of § 106. Ante, at 498, and n. 8.
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