It Took 17 Years: Freelancers Receive $9 Million in Copyright Suit; The New York Times, April 30, 2018

Jaclyn Peiser, The New York Times;It Took 17 Years: Freelancers Receive $9 Million in Copyright Suit

"Seventeen years after nearly 3,000 freelance journalists filed a class-action lawsuit claiming copyright infringement by some of the country’s biggest publishers, the checks are finally in the mail.

The 2,500 writers who made it through the tortuous legal process will start receiving their pieces of a settlement totaling $9 million this week...

The Authors Guild filed the suit — along with the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union and 21 freelance writers named as class representatives — in 2001 after publishers licensed articles by freelancers to the electronic database Lexis/Nexis and other digital indexers without getting the writers’ approval. The publishers include The New York Times, Dow Jones, and Knight Ridder, as well as Reed Elsevier, the provider of Lexis/Nexis.

 

 “For the Authors Guild, this is our bread and butter — to make sure the authors and journalists get paid,” said Mary Rasenberger, the executive director of the Authors Guild."