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Supreme Court Closes Book on Photographer's Case
Fulton County Daily Report
December 10, 2008
The Complete National Geographic: 108 Years of National Geographic magazine on CD-ROM
IMAGE: Mark Thiessen
The U.S. Supreme Court has closed the book on an 11-year-old copyright case that, in its final form, granted The National Geographic Society -- and by extension, other publishers -- the right to reproduce its magazine archive in digital format without paying additional royalties to freelance contributors.
The high court on Monday denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from Florida undersea photographer and former National Geographic magazine contributor Jerry Greenberg. In July, the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7-5 in favor of National Geographic.
Greenberg petitioned the high court for a hearing, claiming that the 11th Circuit, and the 2nd Circuit in a nearly identical case, had misinterpreted the Supreme Court's 2001 landmark copyright ruling, Tasini v. New York Times.
But the high court, without comment, let stand rulings that Tasini -- which bars publishers from selling published articles to Internet databases without securing new copyright permissions from freelance contributors -- did not prohibit publishers from selling their digital archives on CD-ROMs without securing new copyright contracts.
In 1997, Greenberg challenged National Geographic's use without permission of more than 60 of the photographer's photos, which had appeared in the magazine, in a 30-disk CD-ROM compilation of the society's entire magazine archive.
Greenberg's suit caused National Geographic to pull the archive off the market in 2003, after Greenberg, with the approval of the 11th Circuit, was awarded damages by a Florida district court. But the 11th Circuit's final of three rulings favored the magazine.
Terry Adamson, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society, said Tuesday that the magazine is considering issuing a new version of the CD archive.
Greenberg's attorney, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey senior counsel Norman Davis, said that his client, "did this not only for himself but to try to look after the interest of others who were also creative people. In pursuing this cause, he has exhausted virtually all of his means."
