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Court throws out publisher/freelancer settlement
Breaking Legal News |
2007/12/17 06:08
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An appeals court has thrown out a settlement between freelance writers and publishers such as the New York Times and Dow Jones & Co. The writers had sued these publishers, and others including ProQuest and Knight Ridder, asserting that they had not granted the publishers the right to reproduce their work on the internet or in databases. A panel of Court of Appeals judges voted two to one to conclude that the district court lacked the power to approve the settlement that had previously been reached. This was worth up to $18 million.
Circuit judge Chester Straub said: "The overwhelming majority of claims within the certified class arise from the infringement of unregistered copyrights.
"We have held, albeit outside the class-action context, that district courts lack statutory subject matter jurisdiction over infringement claims arising from unregistered copyrights." |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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