Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

The answer to your question is entirely dependent on the language of the original license or grant the authors provided to the print version of the magazine. The more expansive the grant in terms of various channels and media (and technologies), the more likely converting the articles from print to electronic will be permissible. Also, the emphasis on preserving the original formatting is not so much the determining factor, as the placement of graphics and typology is not the issue, but rather the transmutation from one form of media (print) to another (electronic/Internet). To see the issues as they may unfold in a lawsuit context, the very publicized New York Times v. Tasini (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-201) case summarize the issues and the emphasis on contractual language well.

As a result, it may make sense to have an attorney versed in licensing to examine the language of the original grants to determine if you have the latitude to make the shift over to PDF�s.

I hope this helps.