AP win affirms 'hot news' protection
Wed Feb 18, 2009 @ 11:37PM PSTBy Eriq Gardner
"Hot" or not -- a New York District Court judge has allowed a copyright suit filed by the Associated Press against All Headline News to continue.
In the lawsuit, AP alleges that AHN took its stories and prepared them for republication under the AHN banner. In some instances, AHN allegedly copied and pasted news stories directly onto its website. As a result, AP says it lost customers because of AHN's "free riding."
AP pointed to a 1918 U.S. Supreme Court case, International News Service vs. Associated Press, that said that breaking news is the "quasi-property" of a news-gathering organization. AHN believes that Florida law has rejected this theory and held so-called "hot news" to have tenuous value and thus not protected by copyright laws.
In his court decision, Judge Kevin Castel rejects the AHN's motion that Florida law should apply and moves the case forward.
Filed Under Copyright
Litigation
Media
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