SAN DIEGO NEWSPAPER SHUTS DOWN ARCHIVES

By: Joel Davis 'Union-Tribune' Responds To 'Tasini' Decision


Citing a landmark Supreme Court ruling that publishers must get permission from free-lancers before using their articles in electronic databases, the San Diego Union-Tribune is blocking access to all of the archive's contents created prior to Jan. 1, 2000.

Hal Fuson, vice president and chief legal officer of Union-Tribune parent Copley Press Inc., cited the logistical nightmare of sorting through thousands of electronically archived free-lance stories dating back to 1983, limited economic gain, and a class-action suit brought by the National Writers Union (NWU) that includes the Union-Tribune as a defendant.

"It is possible to go through the database using various tools to attempt to extricate those things that are questionable under the (Supreme Court) decision," Fuson said. "But that's a very time-consuming, laborious, and expensive process.

"And the amount of revenue that we derived from selling access to those databases is so small it is uneconomical to do it. We are going to continue to look at ways to restore portions of the database prior to Jan. 1, 2000, as we have resources available but I have no idea how long that will take."

The newspaper said that padlocking the archives was necessitated by its legal liability in the wake of the New York Times v. Tasini decision. The high court, in a 7-2 ruling June 25, said publishers violated copyright law by posting free-lance articles in electronic archives and by selling articles to database companies. It sent the case back to lower courts to decide penalties.

"I think there are a lot of publishers who haven't thought too much about (the ruling) because they are not named as defendants, it hasn't been very high on their radar screen," Fuson noted. "It's not irrational for a publisher to decide to keep their material up, but the reason we chose Jan. 1, 2000, as [the] cutoff date is we are very certain that everything we have acquired since then in the database is subject to a written agreement that makes clear our right to use it in our archives."

The Union-Tribune is thought to be the first major U.S. daily to block its archives in the wake of the ruling. The San Francisco Chronicle, which, like the Union-Tribune, has free archives going back several years, is well aware of the Tasini decision, said Robert S. Cauthorn, vice president of digital operations for the newspaper and its Web site, SFGate.com.

"We're monitoring it," Cauthorn said. "I think we're OK on our contracts."

The National Writers Union says it isn't necessary for newspapers to expunge free-lance articles from the archives. The group is trying to get newspapers to negotiate new settlements for the use of free-lance articles in electronic databases.



Joel Davis (jdavis@editorandpublisher.com) is West Coast editor for E&P.



Related stories:
FREE-LANCERS PROTEST AT 'NY TIMES' (07/20/01)
NEWSPAPERS REVIEW ARCHIVES AFTER TASINI VERDICT (07/03/01)
FREE-LANCERS WIN TASINI CASE (06/25/01)



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