A Coming Flood of Back Issue CDs?

The New York Times reports today that Rolling Stone and Playboy will soon release page-by-page reproductions of back issues on DVD. The New Yorker released an archival CD in 2005, Mother Jones will release an archival CD next month, and of course, National Geographic first released an archival CD way back in 1997. A digital publishing consultant quoted by the Times says it is now much cheaper and easier to archive magazines on DVD than it was a couple of years ago. “I expect you’ll see more and more magazines come out with archives on DVD,” he told the Times.

Unmentioned is another reason publishers are suddenly issuing digital archives: recent federal court rulings have made it safe for them to do so. When it released its archival CD a decade ago, the National Geographic Society was sued by freelance contributors (writers and photographers) for copyright infringement. The freelancers said the CD was a new product, so they were entitled under copyright law to additional payment. National Geographic said the CD was a revision of an existing product, so it didn’t need the freelancers’ permission to produce or distribute the CD. National Geographic ultimately won decisive victories in two separate US Appeals Courts, most recently in Atlanta this past June. The judges said, in effect, “Aha! These NGS CDs are just like library microfiche, and freelancers have never been paid extra for that.” Right or wrong, though, the rulings made it possible for other publishers to issue archival CDs without paying additional fees to freelance contributors. With a windfall like that, how could any publisher now resist offering his or her magazine archives on a CD?