Court Upholds AP "Quasi-Property" Rights On Hot News

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A federal court ruled that the AP can sue competitors for 'quasi-property' rights on hot news, as well as for copyright infringement and several other claims. The so-called 'hot news' doctrine was created by a judge 90 years ago in another case, where the AP sued a competitor for copying wartime reporting and bribing its employees to send them a copy of unreleased news. The courts' solution was to make hot news a form of 'quasi-property' distinct from copyright, in part because facts cannot be copyrighted. But now the AP is making use of the precedent again, going after AHN which competes with the AP, alleging that they're somehow copying the AP's news. The AP has been rather busy with lawsuits lately, so even though the AP has a story about their own lawsuit, we won't link to it."

Comments

I call it plagiarism

[alain94040]

Instead of this fancy legal term of "hot news", I use another term for what AHN is doing to AP: "plagiarism". According to nolo:

putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities

I guess the press is not one of those communities. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits: I was sued once by a company that wanted to put me out of business and they almost succeeded. Being right doesn't matter, it's whoever has the deepest pockets.

So in this case, I'd much rather have the community (the readers) shun AHN. It's important for everyone to know what is going on, and let the public make their own choices.

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[QuoteMstr]

It's the The Associated Press, a wire service.

it is not plagiarism

[jipn4]

The press isn't one of those communities because the press doesn't deal in the kinds of concepts you can plagiarize. If AHN copied AP text verbatim, you might say that they plagiarized the writing, but then they would get sued for copyright infringement. But they are merely stating the same fact as a fact stated in an AP news story, and it's a fact that, unlike a scientific experiment, didn't require creativity to observe--it merely required presence.

So, I don't think it's plagiarism.

Re:it is not plagiarism

[ethicalBob]

The problem with this is that AHN isn't present. They are merely lifting AP stories.

If they were at a new-event, there is no problem with them creating their own copy (words) and publishing. The entire news industry is based on exactly this.

The problem with AHN is that they are not sending reporters to stories, they are merely copying AP stories.

The Associated Press actually is set up for exactly this purpose (other outlets using their stories); but AP wire-service subscribers are held to certain rights and conditions as per the license/subscription agreement. This allows the AP to continue to operate (financially) and continue to produce those stories which AHN could not produce on their own (without hiring the staff to actually go to the location of these news-happenings).

Re:What the hell is "AP"?

[vux984]

I know your being cynical, but if you:

a) answered the question
b) put interesting facts in
c) put relevant link in
d) entertain people in the process

Hell, you deserve to be modded up.

This post meets a & d, but misses b and c so should still do ok. But overuse this particular d and it will cease to entertain which just leaves a, and there is no shortage of a's, which means this template, if it remains unfilled will start out funny, but as the funny wears off your moderation will trend towards redundant. ;)

Re:Some more analysis links

[Red Flayer]

The AP is not a newspaper, it is a newswire. There's a big difference.

It's common knowledge in news publishing that in-depth reporting is disappearing. There have been reporter layoffs coast-to-coast, and more papers than ever are simply paying their subscriptions to the AP or Reuters or another news service, then copyediting the AP article (and crediting the AP, of course). This alone is severely limiting the quantity of quality news (especially local news).

However, facts are facts. Since they cannot be copyrighted, this quasi-property status is all that keeps someone from grabbing the facts from the AP Newswire, and reporting on it themselves. This can be done as quickly as someone who is giving attribution to the AP, so the competitive advantage you allow for (which enables the profit) is moot.

If we work from your example, a publisher protects their profit by use of secrecy. This doesn't work for a newswire, whose very business model depends on others' having access to their reporting.

In essence, there are two levels of publication -- once by the AP to news outlets, and once by the news outlets to the public. No "hot news" provision means that the AP's customers (the news outlets) don't need to pay the AP, or even attribute stories to them. Thus, the AP can't pay reporters, and we have even fewer reporters to dig up the facts.

Eventually, all news outlets will be just like the blogosphere, with a dearth of quality reporting, and endless bloglink circle jerks.

I, for one, appreciate the value of the fourth estate.