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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."
There's a point where the ubiquity of an acronym is so much that it doesn't NEED explaining. Do you need me to type that I live in the United States of America (USA)? Or would you get it from the context of what I was saying because it's a common acronym? The AP has been around for so long and has it's name in so many places that I'd think almost all people reading it would know it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
At what point does this end though? You can't own a fact.
You can sue over them though, as the Big sports associations have:
This one covers "Hot scores".
Back in 1996 this was apparently a controversial thing. Info here about owning facts here and on the same site here.
And there are still attempts to sue fantasy sports like this one, but I've never heard of this kind of suit being won by the plaintiffs.
Stranger things have been upheld in court.