Jonathan Tasini, Mary Kay Blakely, et al.
Respondents
Patricia A. Felch, Counsel of RecordOn December 16, 1993, freelance writers Jonathan Tasini, Mary Kay Blakely, Barbara Garson, Margot Mifflin, Sonia Jaffe Robbins, and David S. Whitford filed suit in district court against a number of magazines and newspapers for which they had written. They argued that, by entering into contracts with commercial electronic databases such as NEXIS, these publications had violated the Copyright Act of 1976 by illegally republishing the authors’ works without permission. After the district court ruled against the writers, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari on November 6,…