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When Eric Weisstein was a forgetful freshman at Cornell University, he began jotting down useful facts in an effort to better remember fine details. These notes covered everything from music to math, from the meaning of the bass clef to the number of times physicist John Bardeen won the Nobel prize. Weisstein scribbled through his master's and doctoral studies in planetary astronomy. By 1995, his math notes had become the basis of a popular Web site dubbed Eric's Treasure Trove of Math.
Figuring he had plenty of solid material, Weisstein asked a number of publishers if they might be interested in publishing his math encyclopedia. Technical publisher CRC Press took the bait and published the 1,969-page, Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics in 1998.
MATH PROBLEM. But the once-amicable relationship between CRC and Weisstein has since disintegrated into a litigious slugfest. After technical software company Wolfram Research Inc. (WRI) began sponsoring Weisstein's Treasure Trove site in June, 1999, CRC claimed that Weisstein's continuing work on the Web infringed on CRC's copyright. On Oct. 23, a U.S. District Court in Illinois, at the behest of CRC, forced Weisstein to close down the math portion of his site.
This case is one of a handful of other important suits testing the applicability of old-media copyright laws on the Web. The Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by six freelance writers against the New York Times Co. and a handful of other media giants. The writers argue they should receive extra pay for stories that appeared both on online databases and in print.
The publishers disagree, arguing they're simply publishing versions of the same product -- whether in print or online. Applying classical principles of law to the Internet promises to be "one of the great mysteries of the 21st century," says Arthur Miller, a professor at Harvard Law School with experience in copyright law.
COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. Weisstein never imagined he would end up in a legal morass. He created his free, noncommercial site after realizing he had 1,400 pages of valuable notes on math, notes his friends were constantly asking for copies of. He has since expanded the Web site (http://www.treasure-troves.com) to cover several areas of science (the site even boasts plot summaries of all Star Trek episodes). Weisstein, who wouldn't disclose the site's exact traffic for legal reasons, says it attracts lots of visitors.
The book, too, has been a commercial success: By March 20, 2000, the encyclopedia had sold 10,174 copies -- in hardcover and CD-ROM. Currently, it's in its second printing. At first, CRC considered Weisstein's Web site a good promotional tool for the book, says the company's senior vice-president and chief financial officer, Fenton Markevich. But when Weisstein handed off sponsorship of his site to the Champaign (Ill.)-based WRI, where he's now a full-time employee, the relationship between author and publisher began to sour.
What gave Markevich and his company the willies is the fact that WRI is a direct competitor to CRC. WRI makes Mathematica computer software, a package often used by the same customers who might purchase Weisstein's book. A link to Weisstein's site is prominently featured on WRI's site. "It's really rather simple," says CRC's Markevich. "CRC owned the copyright. Wolfram took it. It doesn't get more complicated than that."
"OPEN TO INTERPRETATION." According to the contracts Weisstein signed with the publisher, the author granted CRC the full and exclusive rights to the book, including, "without limitation, the right to reproduce, publish, sell and distribute copies of the [book]... in print, audio-visual, electronic" and any other form. Weisstein argues that his Web entries have evolved and constitute a different work than the encyclopedia. But CRC believes that more than 80% of the current online math entries are similar or identical to those published in the book.
WRI hasn't benefited financially from underwriting Weisstein's site, says Theodore Gray, one of WRI's founders. But the software company's arrival on the scene could be viewed as unfair competition, says Jane Ginsburg, a professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School. An Illinois judge who decided the site should be temporarily shut down noted that Weisstein's contract was "open to interpretation."
Weisstein's predicament illustrates the dramatic changes taking place in publishing as a result of the Internet. Electronic rights are becoming increasingly valuable: "Today, most publishers would want electronic rights, especially for an encyclopedia," says Richard Dannay, partner at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman in New York. "I can't imagine any publisher not wanting this."
RECURRING QUESTION. The Net has also led to changes in the way authors approach contracts. "Before, authors would sign contracts with boilerplate clauses transferring all rights [to any medium that might exist in the future]. Authors are now going to pause before they agree to this all-encompassing clause," says Allan Adler, vice-president for legal and government affairs at the Association of American Publishers, the principal trade organization of the book-publishing industry.
As a rule, book contracts now include specific language relating to electronic rights, Adler says. For example, article or book contracts will assign ownership of copyrighted works to specific portions of a Web site. And practicing attorneys are likely to tweak the way they do business further: Harvard's Miller believes Internet rights are "the question that's going to come up time and time again."
But while taking extra precautions to account for the Web is becoming standard, many observers believe the laws themselves won't change much to accommodate the new medium. "The [classic law] principles are sufficiently general," says Columbia's Ginsburg. And "courts have not been particularly receptive to the idea that this is a whole new world."
Weisstein and CRC hope to settle out of court, although the case is still pending. But it clearly illustrates the difficulties of blending old media with new in the evolving world of the Internet. For now, the real losers are the students, educators, and thousands of Web surfers who no longer have access to the math portion of Weisstein's trove.
By Olga Kharif in New York Edited by Alex Salkever
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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