The writers are complaining that where web sites pay publishers for material and then offer it for downloading upon payment by site visitors, the writers should receive a royalty. They say that offering their work in this way amounts to copyright infringement because they never signed away the rights in their work.
In the US, as in the UK, if a freelance writer does not sign away the rights to his or her work, the writer retains copyright ownership in the work. If the work was written in the course of employment, as in the case of a journalist employed by a newspaper, the employer will have first ownership of the copyright, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.
David Seuss, the chief executive of Northern Light, one of the five companies being sued, said his company has 20 million articles in its database and has no way of knowing what contract terms writers and publishers agreed to before the company purchased the material from the publishers. Seuss implied in a statement that, rather than agreeing to pay royalties, the company is likely to remove articles from its database if it has neither the copyright in them nor a licence to use them.
For more information on copyright issues, see our guide Branding and Intellectual Property.
