Supreme Court to hear freelance writers' settlement

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would hear an appeal by a group of publishers seeking to reinstate a settlement with freelance writers in a copyright case involving work included in online databases. The settlement, worth as much as $18 million, was reached in 2005 after about four years of negotiations over claims by the freelance writers that their contracts did not allow for publication of their work electronically. The publishers that appealed to the Supreme Court included Reed Elsevier, New York Times Co , Thomson Reuters Corp, News Corp's Dow Jones & Co, and Knight Ridder, which was purchased by McClatchy Co in 2006. The writers had sued the publishers and electronic database services, saying their contracts did not grant the publishers the right to electronically reproduce their work or license it for others to do so. A federal judge in New York approved the settlement. But a U.S. appeals court panel, by a 2-1 vote, threw out the settlement on the grounds that the judge lacked jurisdiction over infringement claims arising from unregistered copyrights.