In a case that has been going on for years, the Supreme Court reinstated a settlement between freelance authors and publishers. The authors originally sued the publishers saying that it was a breach of the author’s copyright for the publishers to include their rights in electronic databases. The publishers claimed that this was fair use. An $18 million settlement was reached.
A federal appeals court threw out the settlement on technical grounds and now the Supreme Court has overturned that ruling and reinstated it. It is important to note that the reinstatement was made on purely technical grounds and the fair use argument was never adjudicated.
