An October 18th article at PublishersWeekly.com reports that attorneys for the New York Times and its codefendants have filed a petition for rehearing with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, in an effort to convince the court to reconsider a recent ruling that publishers cannot include the works of freelance print contributors in electronic databases without their explicit permissions.

A Petition for rehearing en banc must state concisely why the case is of exceptional importance or with what decision of the United States Supreme Court, this court, or another court of appeals the panel decision is claimed to be in conflict. The petition requests an en banc review by all 21 judges of the second circuit.

The Publishers Weekly article quotes Patsy Felch, lawyer for Tasini and the co-plaintiffs, as saying that review usually requires "something astounding, a political hot potato or the revising of a law. It would be unusual for the court to agree to rehear a unanimous decision, written by its chief judge."

See Tasini v. New York Times overturned in 2nd Circuit Court for details of the September 24 judgment which overturned the August, 1997 U.S. District Court ruling, that publishers could reproduce articles on CD-ROMs and some data bases without the authors’ permission.

Posted October-21-1999