Energy freelancer suing Dow Jones

McClatchy and Dow Jones & Co.  provided articles to LexisNexis and other online databases without permission of their author, Eric Watkins, a journalist specializing in energy issues, claims in two lawsuits for copyright infringement.

Matt Reynolds of the Courthouse News Service writes, “Watkins claims that he submitted articles to The Wall Street Journal and Knight-Ridder. Dow Jones operates the Factiva database and the Wall Street Journal. McClatchy owns Knight-Ridder.

“A journalist for 20 years, Watkins says he has written thousands of freelance pieces that appeared in the Oil and Gas Journal, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

“When he wrote articles for The Wall Street Journal and Knight-Ridder, Watkins says, he never authorized Dow Jones or McClatchy to license or republish his work elsewhere.

“Nevertheless, in 2012, Watkins says, he discovered that Dow Jones had provided more than 150 of his copyrighted articles for publication on the Factiva Database. McClatchy had allowed ProQuest and LexisNexis to publish 10 of his opinion pieces, according to his complaint.

“‘The stories written by plaintiff that were contained in the Factiva database had originally been provided by plaintiff to other sources such as The Associated Press, The Middle East, African Business, The Wall Street Journal, Lloyds List and others,’ the complaint states.”

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