Twelve federal judges heard arguments in Atlanta on Tuesday in an 11-year-old lawsuit that could have wide repercussions for the publishing industry.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considered the merits of a suit filed by a freelance photographer who sued National Geographic magazine for using his photographs in the publication's 1997 30-disc CD-ROM anthology. The hearing drew a packed house to the Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals Building downtown, including former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell.

Representing National Geographic was former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, author of the 1998 report to Congress that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Said Starr to the panel: "The entire publishing industry is awaiting the court's decision."

Photographer Jeffrey Greenberg sued National Geographic in 1997 after photos he had sold to run in the magazine reappeared in the publication's CD anthology, which included every issue of the magazine from 1888 to 1996.

National Geographic has maintained that the anthology is a republication of the magazine, so it did not need Greenberg's permission. Greenberg's attorneys have argued that the CD set constituted a new product and thus the magazine needed to have Greenberg's permission, which would require compensation.

"I think a lot of publications want to republish material without compensating the authors," said Norman Davis, Greenberg's attorney.

The case has followed a circuitous path. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit first ruled for Greenberg in 2001. Four years later, a similar suit involving freelance photographers and writers in the 2nd Circuit in New York favored National Geographic. In 2007, after Greenberg's suit came back to the 11th Circuit Court on appeal, a different three-judge panel ruled for National Geographic. After that, judges vacated the second decision and agreed to hear the case en banc, or as a full panel.

On Tuesday, Starr, Davis and the judges labored over what the 30-disc set was and wasn't: Was it a revision? A collection? A compilation? How was it different or the same as a microfilm reproduction of the magazine?

Many publishers will be interested in how the judges rule, which may occur in a few months.

"If publishers were not allowed to have software associated with the digital reproductions of their works, it would significantly limit the market" for such products, said Lawrence Nodine, an intellectual property lawyer and Emory University adjunct law professor who is not associated with the case.