Photographer takes copyright battle to the Supreme Court

In what may be the final step in a long-running case over electronic republication of freelancers’ works, a former National Geographic freelance photographer is asking the Supreme Court to settle a copyright dispute over republication of his photos on a CD archive of the magazine.

In 1997, National Geographic developed a CD archive of the magazine, which included photos Greenberg sold to the magazine over nearly thirty years. Greenberg contends the magazine needed to negotiate the right to republish those photos.

Greenberg won in trial court, but lost at the appellate level. He is arguing that the appellate court incorrectly saw the CD archive as an electronic edition of an existing work, instead of as a new work.