Ryan v. Carl Corp.

Citation: Ryan v. Carl Corp., 23 F.Supp.2d 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1998).

Factual Background
A group of freelance writers filed a class action suit against Knight-Ridder Information (K-R), alleging that its Web-based (and fax-based) article distribution services (Carl Corp. and Uncover Co.) violate the copyrights in their works. Two K-R subsidiaries provide customers with copies of articles from journals by fax or online. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants are illegally duplicating and distributing their copyrighted works, and are failing to pay royalties.

The defendants charge users a copying fee and a copyright fee for each article reproduced from their database. In some cases, the defendants have an agreement directly with the publisher for reprint rights, in other cases where the defendants do not have an agreement with the publisher, the defendants pay a publisher a flat $3 per article. The plaintiffs claim that the copyrights to the articles being copied actually belong to them, and not the publishers, and therefore, the publishers could not give permission for reproduction of their copyrighted work without their consent.

Trial Court Decision
Defendants moved for partial summary judgment concerning the interpretation of Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act, which provides in pertinent part:


 * (c) Contributions to Collective Works. Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that particular collective work, and any later collective works in the same series.

The plaintiffs claimed that the publishers may only reproduce their articles as part of the collective work, and cannot publish them separately. The defendants claim that the language of the section indicates that publishers have the right to reproduce each original work which is "part" of the collective work, even though the entire collective work is not being reproduced. The court found that the statute, as well as the legislative history, indicated that the court should construe the statute narrowly with regard to publisher's rights, and accordingly, the plaintiffs' interpretation of the statute is correct.