Now that Sotomayor has been confirmed, we are all asking the same question: where does she stand on issues that matter to me?

All of you freelancers out there should be aware of a ruling she made back in 1997.  This was at the time that companies such as ProQuest and Lexus Nexus were selling electronic databases containing articles from newspapers, magazines and journals. While the publications were compensated for the use of the articles, freelancers who sold their articles or photos for assumed one-time use were not. This was all pretty similar to the recent Writer's Strike, but without the power of taking our favorite shows off tv.

Anyway, a bunch of freelancers sued some of the publications involved, including the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, citing unlicensed online use. Sotomayor sided with the publishers saying that without a law from Congress she could not punish them. Her ruling was then reversed by the appeal courts, and the freelancers ultimately won! Woohoo!

On another interesting point, the last digital copyright case heard by the supreme court was MGM v Grokster in 2005. The court unanimously sided with MGM on this one, ruling that Grokster's p2p file sharing was an infringement on copyright law. So basically, it would take more than just Sotomayor's opinion to change the court's view on digital copyright.

So I guess the only thing left is to wait and watch. I would love to see an online intellectual property case go before the court sometime soon. Is it time that we brought a bit more law to the Wild West that is the blogosphere? Just maybe...

(photo by Stacy Ilys from wikimedia commons)