With the freelance settlement rejected, what's next?(Starting Over)(copyright infringement of publishers with the works of freelance writers by licensing or republishing articles in electronic databases without permission or compensation)

On August 17, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sent the parties in the long-running class action suit known shorthand as Freelance back to the drawing board, rejecting an $18 million settlement struck in 2005. The case stems from the central rights dispute of the digital age, Tasini v. New York Times, in which publishers were found to have infringed the copyrights of freelance writers by licensing or republishing articles in electronic databases without permission or compensation.

The case has had a long and winding legal road. In 1997, then district court judge Sonia Sotomayor ruled in favor of the publisher defendants. In 1999, an Appeals Court reversed Sotomayor. In 2001, the Supreme Court affirmed that reversal, leaving publishers to deal with millions of potential infringement claims. In 2005, a class action settlement was announced and quickly approved. However, a handful of objectors appealed. The …