National Geographic starts selling entire archive, free of obligations to freelance contributors

National Geographic has just released for sale a complete digital archive of the magazine going back to October 1888, following a pair of federal appeals court rulings in June 2008 that says U.S. magazine and newspaper publishers may transfer their published archives to digital format and sell them without paying further fees to freelancer contributors.

According to a story published by Folio:, anyone who buys the archive at $69.95 for the DVD-ROM box set or $199.95 for a portable hard drive can scroll, search and print with 1,200 dpi clarity.

For more than a decade, National Geographic argued in court that it shouldn’t have to pay freelancers additional royalty fees associated with the commercial sale of the first edition of “The Complete National Geographic,” which was released in 1997.