This document discusses several legal issues related to news databases. It covers freelance copyrights and a key case involving freelance writers' rights (Tasini v. New York Times). It also discusses errors in newspapers, the process for corrections, and the role of librarians in addressing inaccuracies. Finally, it outlines some organizations involved in licensing newspaper content and aggregating it online, such as the Newspaper Licensing Agency, eClips, and ClipShare.

1. Department of Library
and Information sciences
Seerat Sharif Chishti
BLIF15M004

2. Media
Librarianship
Legal Issues for News Databases

3. Contents
Background
Freelance copyrights
Errors, correction and legal
action
Live court proceedings
The Newspaper Licensing
Agency (NLA)

4. Definitions
A daily or weekly publication on folded
sheets; contains news and articles and
advertisements.
OR
A typical newspaper is an aggregated
product, made up of contributions from
staff and reporters, freelance journalists,
stories from news agencies, syndicated
features, letters to the editors and so on.

5. Background
oOnline archives of newspaper were
difficult and troublesome.
oIn early ages of digital environment,
finding back issue of newspaper was a
not an easy task.
oNewspapers, preserved in public
libraries, were not easy to search and
retrieve.
oFinding newspaper through BHI was
also time consuming process.

6. Background
oCutting and clipping process was
considered useful for the
preservation of newspapers.
oAll the processes of BHI and
clipping does not have any
concerned with copying of material
oThat is why there was no concept of
copyrights.

7. Background
o When the contents of newspaper went
under technological change i.e from
print to digital format, libraries began to
create full text of newspapers,
searchable electronic archives.
o Most libraries began to create online in
house digital text archives.

8. Background
oMany of the complaints were
recorded by the journalists
about in house digital text
archives.
a. They have only text.
b. It was not easy to read.

9. Freelance copyrights
Copyright laws and understanding of
contracts is fundamental requirement for
anyone working in information
management.

10. The Tasini case
o In 1993, freelance writer Jonathan Tasini
began legal action against some
newspaper publishers.
o He said that publishers did not have any
right to online publish the contents of
freelance writers without their permission.
o The defense of publishers make argument
that the files held by LexisNexis was a
collection of literary work of published
newspaper. And such use was allowed.

11. The Tasini case
oIn 2001, US supreme court gave
the case in the favor of freelance
writers.
oCourt’s opinion was ‘by considering
the electronic version of their
publications to be simply another
edition of the printed work,
publishers had pirated the rights of
the freelancers.

12. The Tasini case
o In 2005, a final statement was recorded
in which a minimum $10 million and a
maximum of $18 million, less $3.8
million for lawyer’s fees and
administrative costs, would be made
available by the online vendors and
publishers to compensate freelance
writers rights has been pirated.

13. Errors, corrections and legal
action

14. Errors, corrections and legal
action
o According to the amount of information
given in an average newspaper on daily
basis, a newspaper frequently involves
many errors.
o Some studies found that correction and
quality problems of today’s newspaper is
as same as the problems of newspapers
in 60 years ago.

15. Types of errors
oErrors can be in the forms of facts
or it can be an error of identity.
oMany journalists rely on their own
archives for factual information.
oAs new media such as Wikipedia
are in doubt for the factual
information.

16. How to complaint?
o It varies from newspaper to newspaper
that how a newspapers deals with
complaints from the members of public.
o But usually there is likely to be some
dialogue between the editor an the
complainant.
o A magazine Guardian, publishes the
corrections and clarifications.

17. Remedies
oRemedies for correcting errors
range from publishing a letter to the
editor to printing a correction or
clarification.
oOther can be involving a lawyer for
each party to reach to an
agreement or a case may be
brought to court.

18. Role of a Librarian
o In 2003, Hansen, Paul and Neibergall found
that, in the USA, accuracy of news grows
more worse due to inconsistent applied
correction policies that can cause errors to be
repeated.
o They found that there was no method to
reveal and correct inaccuracies routinely in
reporting after publication.
o It was the responsibility of the librarian to
convey any publish corrections to the online
vendors.

19. Role of Librarian
o Librarian can also fix the correction to
the original story and resend it to the
online vendor.
o A contract was signed containing a
clause in which publisher justifies that
the data is not harmful and indemnifies
the online vendor against any action
arising from the newspaper content.

20. Role of Librarian
oAnother role of librarian is to work
as an intermediary with the editors,
managing editor or deputies on
upcoming legal matters.

21. Live court proceedings
oDuring live court proceedings
newspapers should not publish
anything that might prejudice the trial.

22. The Newspaper Licensing Agency
(NLA)
oNLA is working as a collecting
agency for UK national and
regional newspaper.

23. eClips
o It works as online aggregators.
o eClips is a digital database of
newspaper articles aimed at the press
cuttings and media monitoring market.
o eClips was launched in March 2006.

24. eClips
o They directly take newspaper content
from newspaper production systems and
processed to present each article, as
originally published, in PDF along with
its image of the page showing the
articles in its original hard copy context.
o NLA is playing its major role in this
regard also benefiting the press cuttings
agencies and publishers alike.

25. eClips
oeClips currently provides
contents from national
newspapers as well as key
regional and Scottish national
content.

26. Clip share
o It was launched in 2007.
o It works as a desktop research tool for newspaper
journalists and librarians.
o It delivers current and archived articles from the
London national, Scottish and regional
newspapers in the original context.
o The articles are made available as text, PDF or
set in the page as it originally appeared in print.